UNDOING and REWRITING
by Mikael-Macbeth
Summary: XXX COMPLETE; After-series, anime-based, Greed X Kimbley XXX ...And then the cold, heartless, ruthless murderer became overwhelmed with emotion.
1. I

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Though, I think Arakawa should give me Greed and Kimbley. I would make them so happy together. XD_

**AN: This is it. This is what I have been perfecting for the LONGEST time.**

**My ultimate GreKim. O:**

**That is... I'll only know if it is ultimate once you tell me so. C:**

**This first chapter will probably make _no_ sense, believe me. Trust me. It WILL make sense after you begin to read more and more. Hell, you might get it almost as soon as you start reading it. I suggest, though, before reading, that you have seen all of FMA, including the movie. Please. Otherwise, none of this will make any sense. You have been warned. Also, this IS yaoi between Greed and Kimbley. You will be warned only once. I dislike bashers, so just don't do it. And I apologize ahead of time, but I can't take requests with that happens in the storyline. Sorry.**

**This is my own ending to the untold story of Greed and Kimbley. Please enjoy, and feel free to leave a lovely review. C:

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I: Tooku Tooku Omoi Hatenaku 

Suddenly, he was sitting up, sweat pouring from his face.

"Just a nightmare," he whispered to himself, clutching the covers around himself as if they could actually protect him from the demons circling the interior of his mind. The many demons that he knew he could never erase-- the many demons he regretted bringing into existence.

Even though he was sweating bullets, he realized it was freezing cold in the room. Looking up, he could see a slow-spinning fan, making its lazy rotations every seven seconds.

Where was he? This place didn't look at all familiar to him. He was suddenly feeling out of place, a very awkward feeling for him to have.

He put his feet slowly onto the floor, feeling the soft plush carpet under his toes. He pulled the covers from the bed, dragging them along behind him toward a mirror leaning up against the wall. As he got closer, his reflection came into view, and the more it came into view, the more alien everything felt to him.

There, in the mirror, was him-- but not him. It was a younger version of himself, with long back-length hair pulled back into a ponytail. A few strands fell over his shoulders and into his hazel-golden eyes that stared incredulously at this "reflection."

This was not the face he remembered. It was… but was not.

He stepped away from the mirror, his shoulders shaking. Examining his hands, he could see his skin-tone was a shade paler than he recalled. He turned the backs over to examine his palms, and his heart sank.

The tattoos-- the moon and the sun-- that he had faintly remembered needling into his hands when he was barely a teenager, or perhaps in a dream, were gone, as if they had never even been there in the first place.

He had never been one to panic, but it was now that he counted as a time to do such.

He ran over to the door and into a small hallway, his heart racing a thousand miles a second.

_'Think,'_ he told himself, looking wildly around to grasp any kind of familiarity with his surroundings, _'What can you remember?'_

His mind flashed a thought-- a single, bone-chilling thought.

He remembered death.

He remembered lying among piles of rubble, bleeding, his thoughts fading. The words he said were muted, silent, cut out by a thick ringing in his ears.

He remembered, as his thoughts fell from his mind like dying leaves from an autumn tree, that he had wanted to say he was sorry, but that it was far too late to do any such things as apologizing.

He stumbled through the hallway, grasping the wall for support, trying to get his head around what was happening.

Ahead, he could see a dim light, and he tripped towards it, hoping that it could prove to be a guiding light of some kind.

It turned out to be a small reading light, not a guiding light of any kind by his standards, set on a single table in the middle of a tiny room filled with cutting implements, a stove in one corner, and a sink in the other. Both the sink and the stove looked very strange, but it was probably just his imagination.

There, at the table, he saw a woman sitting there, her curly black-and-grey hair falling into her face as her thoughts were engrossed in a book.

As he approached, she suddenly realized he was there, and she looked up at him, smiling. She placed a crimson-painted nail into the middle of the book, looked to him with bright cerulean eyes, and said simply, "Something wrong, Zachary…?"

_Zachary_…?

For a moment he thought she may have been addressing someone else, but when he realized she was addressing _him_, he replied, "No, nothing. Just…"

He paused, not sure of how to answer. He couldn't let her know that he was suffering from some sort of an amnestic trauma, so he decided to be truthful.

"Just had a nightmare."

The woman sighed.

"You mean you still haven't outgrown bad dreams, Zach? I'd expect that by sixteen, your dreams would turn to different subjects…" she said haughtily, obviously being sarcastic.

From the way she spoke, her obvious tone, and the reference to being extremely familiar with his past (which he himself was not aware of), he could only guess she was his mother. He decided to give it a shot.

"Hey, Mom, what time is it?"

The woman looked up to the clock (which he was glad that she hadn't told him to look for himself, given that he didn't even know it was there) and said flatly, "Four."

He sighed in relief. He had guessed right at her being his mother, at least. He could deal with that little fact. It was a start.

"You do know you have school tomorrow, right?" she continued on.

School?

He hadn't gone to school in _years._

Or, maybe he had always been going to school.

Or... maybe he was just getting his mind all twisted into nasty knots.

"Sorry, Mom. I'll get back to bed. I was just… feeling lonely."

"Well, honey, just go on back to bed, and let me know if you need anything," she said affectionately, her kind blue eyes averting their gaze back into her book.

It was true. The one thing that stuck out most in his mind was that he felt lonely, more than anything.

Besides that, he remembered that he had lived his life completely alone and partially miserable. He had gone through his whole life, as he recalled, bitter and impartial to others' feelings.

He also remembered a single person, whom he feared, yet strangely loved, that he recalled that he wanted to tell he was sorry. He could remember nothing more-- no name, no face, no anything.

Other than that, he was a blank slate.

He made a decision right there as he turned and stalked back to his room, his eyes drooping with sleep.

If this was some sort of a second chance, or some sort of a purposeful journey into unknown and uncharted waters, he was ready to take it.


	2. II

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Unfortunately. I can only write fanfiction and pretend... --sigh-- XD Also, this is GreKim yaoi. If you don't like it, read again and again until you become acquainted._

**AN: Well, here I am again. Fortunately, due to a fluke in the school system, today is yet another day with which I get to do whatever I want! 8D So, I decided to update on this, since you're all so damn excited to read my writing! ...(HAR.) So, thanks to all who are reviewing and faving and watching and whatnot! --hearts and kisses--**

**(I forgot to mention... this is a sorta sequel to "Crimson Regret." I have a terrible habit of intertwining and referencing all of my works at one point or another. XD)**

**Again, some of this may make not a lot of sense, but if you DO know what is going on, don't give it away to the people who don't. It's partially a mystery, but not really.**

**I need to stop typing so much in my author's notes. :/**

**Onward!

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II: Kusatta Kokoro O 

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!! Time for school, Zachey!! Time for school!"

He opened his eyes as sunlight poured through a small grimy window. Looking up, he could see the widest, most azure eyes he had ever seen in his life (or, at least, from what he could remember) staring down at him excitedly through a tangled mass of ebony curls.

"Mommy says that if my brother Zachey oversleeps again, Janie gets to cut your hair!" the girl said cutely, pointing to herself proudly.

From this, he surmised this was "Janie," his little sister.

He sat up slowly and sighed deeply.

Going to school, he realized, was going to be a pain in the ass.

"I'm getting up, I'm getting up, geez," he mumbled, brushing the little girl off the bed.

Normally, if he had had to put up with any flack like this, especially from a little squirt like this, he would have just blown her away without a second thought, from what he remembered of his _old_ self.

But this, he told himself, was his second chance to do better than he had in his past-life. This was time to make a _new_ self.

Besides, he didn't have the means to do any blowing-away, so the idea would have to remain stagnant.

He got up off the bed and walked slowly over to the closet on the other side of the room. He opened the door slowly and took a look at the clothes within. Nothing fancy, he saw automatically. He saw several pairs of pants made of a blue-denim material and shirts with various logo-designs on them.

Also, under the hanging clothes, were stacks-and-stacks of boxes, all there, it seemed to him, for no reason. They all seemed to be empty, but serving a purpose to cover up something…

He ignored it for now. He was sure he'd have plenty of time to look into the mystery of the boxes.

He picked out one of the pairs of pants ("jeans," he recalled they were referred to as, which seemed to be one of the most random and useless pieces of information in unraveling all that was going on) and a red shirt (he had an affinity to that colour, he remembered) marked with the logo _COOL JOKE_ (whatever the Hell that meant) and began unbuttoning his pajama-top.

Janie gasped, and ran out the door yelling, "Mommy!! Mommy, Zachey was gonna get naked in front of me!!"

He sighed.

Kids.

He remembered that he didn't have any, and for a good reason, too.

As he quickly changed out of his pajamas, he suddenly realized that his wrists burned slightly. Rolling up the pajama-sleeves, he could see that the veins in his wrists were cut open slightly, and though healing quite nicely, were cut up roughly, as if done by a jagged blade of some kind. He hadn't noticed them before. It must have been one of those pain-when-seen deals.

Things were getting stranger and stranger…

He decided to settle on a long-sleeved shirt to go under the short-sleeved red one-- a black-and-white striped one-- to cover up the marks, which he would be sure to investigate later.

When finished, he went back into the kitchen area, not even bothering to look for a bathroom. He didn't want to feel like a total idiot by asking where the bathroom in his own home was.

There, the woman, his mother, was busy over a steaming stove making a breakfast of some kind.

He must not have had food in ages, because his stomach started rumbling violently as he took in the smell of the cooking food.

"Zachary Jules Kenderson, you _know_ I've told you not to disregard the existence of your little sister in your room. She _is_ only four years old."

He took in the sound of his "name" in disgust. Man, she must _really_ hate him to call him _that_.

"Sorry, Mom."

"And don't even bother to stay for breakfast. The bus is going to be here any second."

He started to rush to the door (he could see that it was the only one that led outside) when she stopped him with a greasy spatula pointed towards him.

"Don't forget your books again, Zach. You may be a smart kid, but you'll never pass without the texts," she said exasperatedly, pointing the spatula to a forest-green backpack resting up against one of the legs of the kitchen table.

He picked them up, slung them over his shoulder, and decided that in order to play the kid of this lady, he would throw in a quick kiss on her cheek and a swift "see ya" before rushing out the door.

Taking in the surroundings outside, he could see that he wasn't living in a big city or a small country-town, but something in-between the two. He could see grass all around, and the air smelled sweet and hardly foul and congested like a large city, but still there were many houses scattered all over in miscellaneous places.

Looking back to his own house, he could tell that he belonged to a pretty lower-class family. Not poor, but definitely not rich. The house was only one story and painted a pale yellow, which looked rather sickly in the early-morning light, but it at least looked pretty nice. Not dirty at all-- actually pretty clean.

He walked down a small paved path toward the road where he guessed the bus would make its stop.

He had recalled a wagon of some kind, carting kids around, but this version of the "bus" could be anything. Indeed, it began conjuring up quite a few disturbing images. But he let that one thought pass.

Looking down the road, he tried to wrap his brain around everything.

Everything was just so... _different_. Things looked sleeker, cleaner, much more technologically advanced.

Nothing was making any sense to him.

But maybe, it was better that he _not_ know what was going on. Maybe, if he did, his brain would implode.

Suddenly he heard a low-humming sound coming from down the road. He craned his neck over to see that a large yellow-and-black object was moving towards him at a speedy rate.

As it moved closer, it began to slow down.

He supposed this was the "bus" that would take him to the school.

The bus stopped, and the door opened, to his surprise, with a loud and quite abrasive "snap." He was a bit hesitant to get on, but the driver of this "bus" eyed him impatiently. Obviously, he had a lot of stops to make before getting to the school.

He jumped on and walked up the (in his opinion) steep stairs. There, he saw the bus was divided into two sections of dull grey seats that filled all the way to the back of the vehicle.

As he looked around, he suddenly saw an arm waving to him, then gesturing for him to go over there.

He walked to the back of the bus to the waving arm and saw that sitting there was a girl, probably around his age, with short blond hair and slanting, fully-green eyes, almost like the shade of his backpack.

He took a seat beside her and clutched his backpack to his knees, waiting for her to speak. The bus started rolling again for a while, then stopped again, and a few more kids got on, then the whole process repeated itself. Rather a boring process, really. Repetitive. Stale. Easy to do.

For a while, he was sure he was going to be sick, but then he got used to it after a bit. This "bus" sure was an interesting invention.

"Well, Zach, did you oversleep again? You look like you've been run over by an eighteen-wheeler," the girl finally said to him.

"Yeah, I guess," He said shortly.

_'Whatever an eighteen-wheeler is…'_

The more he looked at her, the more familiar she became. There was just something about her that he just _knew_…

"Hey, Mary! You mean you didn't even save a seat for me…?"

He looked up to see a short pale boy with spiked-up blond hair and grey eyes was standing beside their seat, smiling sarcastically. Obviously, the two were friends, from the joking tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry Dean, I wasn't aware that I was supposed to save this seat specifically for _you_."

Mary and Dean. Yet again, he was faced with a situation where things were familiar, yet completely inane.

Still, he could easily conclude that they were all friends, and he decided that was the best place to start.

"So, Zach, you get that calc. homework done…?" Dean asked as he took a place in front of them and turned back, hanging his arms over the back of the seat so he could converse.

_Calc…?_ What the Hell was _that_…?

"Uhm, yeah, I think…" he lied quickly, hoping to duck out of the situation.

"Oh, could I see?! Lawrence won't hand over his work _ever_. He says it's 'cheating' and I say he's full of shit," Dean asked, throwing in his explanation with a touch of contempt.

He decided to risk making a fool of himself and began digging in his backpack. Hopefully, it might give him a few of the answers he needed.

He browsed one folder-- nothing but a bunch of extensive sentences on lined paper.

Another folder produced nothing but a bunch of sketches of lions, wolves, and random symbols-- perhaps the interest of the former owner of this vessel, whom he had obviously pushed out of existence. (This thought actually brought him a touch of sadness... for a moment. Like a wave of nausea: in one second, out the next.)

Finally, he ran across a folder with papers scattered with bunches of mathematical equations. He picked the first paper and held it out to Dean.

"This it?" he asked.

"Yup! Thanks so much, Zach. You're a _life-saver_!" said Dean, taking the paper and pulling books out of his own backpack to get to work immediately.

Mary didn't say anything more-- she had fallen asleep a while back. (Mouth open, head leaned back as if trying to get flies.)

So that left him to his own thoughts.

He didn't want to call himself "Zach"-- he remembered he was called something else.

He couldn't remember now, but he was determined to remember sooner or later.

"Alright, kids! Time to get off!" called out the driver of the bus, pulling a lever of some kind to open the doors.

He got up from his seat, trying not to get trampled under the out-pour of other kids, and finally made it out onto the sidewalk. The sun cast a bright orange glow on everything that seemed to make the world look as if it were melting, gently melting, under its warm and humble heat.

Mary and Dean followed shortly, the former wiping the sleep from her eyes and the latter still copying equations on a notebook held in the crook of his arm.

Mary took the lead, despite her tiredness, and led them through a group of glass doors into a cafeteria of some kind. Here, a bunch of other children were, sitting at tables, laughing and talking loudly, waiting to be released to go to their classes.

He followed Mary and Dean over to a table where a huge, broad, and very stern-looking dark-skinned kid with red hair was already sitting. He didn't look all that bright, but then again, looks could be deceiving.

"See, Lawrence! I got my work done!" Dean said proudly, swiftly slipping the original work back to the rightful owner and holding out his copy proudly. He had a gutsy-dorky-"oh yeah I'M the man"-grin on his face.

Lawrence scoffed, of course. He was obviously _quite_ the intelligent one.

"Sure, Dean, _sure_."

He sighed, taking a seat by them all, his head swimming like a school of befuddled and tired fish.

Lawrence, Dean, Mary…

All of them friends he couldn't even remember.


	3. III

_Disclaimer: I own nothing, but hold on to this fanfiction in the hopes that one day I just might. XD And again, this is GreKim yaoi. If you don't like it, read it over and over until you DO._

**AN: Apologies for the late update (or, it might not necessarily be, I don't know). I have a terrible time getting hold of a computer quite often, so just take the updates as they come. XD**

**This is probably my favorite chapter so far. 'o' Exciting things happen! ...Well, or so I think. You be the judge. C:**

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**III: Kimi Ga Inai Sekai Wa Maru De JIGSAW PUZZLE**

The bell suddenly rang, and all around, people began moving.

This caused him to panic, yet again. (This thing and panicking-- he noticed they didn't really belong together. It just seemed it wasn't something he was too awfully used to.)

Well, he didn't know where to go…

Then Lawrence put a hand on his shoulder and sighed.

"C'mon, Zach, Mrs. Bertram would be most disappointed if we were late."

_'Thank God,' _he thought to himself, following close behind Lawrence as to not get lost in the moving crowd.

The two moved along for a while, then Lawrence stopped at one of those locked metal-door devices, input a code of some kind into a spinning lock (he remembered these things and he hadn't been the best of pals...), and retrieved his class-materials.

He followed him closely, not daring to get separated.

Lawrence turned off into a bright white room and took his desk. He quickly sat down beside him, and since Lawrence said nothing about it, he guessed it was his rightful place. (All this guess-work was Hell. Seriously, it was just taking a strenuous toll on his nerves.)

Another bell sounded, and a plump woman in horn-rimmed glasses entered the room, her pig-like nose in the air, her bottom looking as if it was trying to wiggle out of her too-short professional mini-skirt. Her heels, which were much too tiny (she really _was_ flattering herself with all this get-up) and could be classified as "cockroach-killers."

"Alright, settle down. Get out your text-books, open to page three-forty-two, read to page three-fifty-six, and answer the comprehensive questions at the end of the chapter. I expect this to be done by the end of class-- an hour and thirty minutes from now. Doesn't sound so hard, does it?" she said in a nasally voice with a faked-accent. (He could tell, her voice was straining with that twang.)

After examining the book Lawrence pulled from his stack of books, he reached into his own backpack, and managed to find an exact copy, titled _Literature10._

He opened to page three-forty-two and began reading.

_'Chapter 12, Section 1, Forming a Short Story._

_'The structure of a short story is made up of many essences, such as…'_

As he read along, he found he was kept from complete concentration due to... weird noises. (Loud, redundant... scratchy...? What ways to describe these otherworldly screechings...?)

Glancing around to the desk right behind his, he could see there was another student, no book on his desk, his elbows rested on the desk-surface, his ears plugged in with some kind of weird hearing devices. He had creamy tanned skin, and spiked-up black-brown hair, and sunglasses covering up the fact that he was asleep. His ears were pierced in several places, with large black ones in the center of both lobes. His mouth also had the same kind of punishment-- three small rings circled the bottom lip, all nice and evenly spaced. He was dressed all in black, which must have been sweltering, given the extreme heat of the classroom.

There seemed to be music of some kind, playing rather loudly, coming from the ear-plugs the boy wore. Whatever he was listening to, it must have been turned up to its maximum noise-capacity, because it seemingly drowned out the rest of the sounds in the room.

Slowly, he leaned in closer for just a tiny listen...

Suddenly, the boy opened his eyes as he realized he was being stared at. There, cold and ever-deepening amethyst met startled golden-hazel, and suddenly, the world seemed to fall away. It was as if a shock of realization had shot through him like a serendipitous thunder-clap.

He knew him.

He knew this boy…

_No_, there was no way that was--

"Excuse me, Mr. Gregory Glass, am I intruding on music-hour?!" the teacher bellowed, slamming a hand firmly onto the amethyst-eyed boy's desk.

The boy, "Gregory," removed the plugs from his ears and reached into the pocket of his messenger-bag, switching off the loud music-noises.

"Sorry, Mrs. Bertram, but I've already read this chapter several times and written approximately fifty short-stories. I'm pretty sure that covers the finer points of your class. So… I'll probably, as soon as you turn back around, continue listening to my new CD, alright…?"

Man, this kid had _balls_.

Gregory's eyes looked back over to his, and he felt his face flushing, reflexively, as if the sensation actually _belonged_ there.

Mrs. Bertram turned five shades of red, and not from flushing either.

"Mr. Glass, get _OUT _of my class!! I have had it with you and your blatant _derailing_ of my teaching-method!!" she screamed, pointing toward the door with a plump finger.

Gregory only smiled, showing off what appeared to be self-sharpened fangs.

"Very well, Winifred. I'll just go out, meandering throughout the halls, being the little Hellion I am…" Gregory fake-sighed, getting up from his seat. He was really tall, actually, and dwarfed Mrs. Bertram by about two feet. (Maybe Gregory would even dwarf _him_ by a foot or so.)

"Go to the _OFFICE_, Mr. Glass. I'm sure Mr. Tandem would love to deal with your sorry attitude," she said as calmly as she could.

Gregory walked to the doorway and out, strutting all the way as if he owned the entire classroom, the entire school, Hell, the entire world.

It impressed him, actually. He was glad that he wasn't the only rebel--

Suddenly, something was knocked loose from his head.

He remembered he had been an enemy of society, that he had always gone against the rules, that laws and regulations had never mattered to him.

"_Ass_," Lawrence whispered as he worked one of the questions through his head.

Obviously, Lawrence was referring to Gregory.

Obviously, they were _not_ friends.

But he thought to himself, _'I kinda like that guy…'_

He decided instead of being "Mr. Rebel" like Gregory to instead read what he had been told. He even worked through a few of the questions before the bell rang.

"We'll finish up whatever you don't have done tomorrow. You're excused," Mrs. Bertram said calmly, straightening the handed-in papers

The class moved out of the room, and he managed to lose sight of Lawrence.

He was going to start panicking as a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Well, Crimson, I thought I'd never see you again."

His heart stopped at the almost-familiar and lovingly-said nickname. (This heart-stopping business was another frightening matter. It was another thing he had never been used to, exactly.)

Suddenly, Gregory came into his view, a grin on his face.

"Let's go elsewhere. I'm sure you could afford to skip a class or two. Not that it really matters to you anyways," Gregory said, smirking winningly.

He decided to go with him. Besides, he obviously knew what was going on. It would be nice, for a change, to be let in on this whole mind-trip.

The two managed to slip out the back-doors which led into the teacher's parking-lot.

Gregory immediately leaned himself up against the wall, and reaching into the bag he had slung over his arm, he produced a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out for himself and held one out to him.

"Smoke? Wait, no, never mind, you never smoked," Gregory said, answering himself almost fondly.

He lit the cigarette with a lighter in his tight-leather-pants pocket and took a deep drag, the smoke filling his lungs. After a while, he spoke, the air being filled with a thick grey cloud.

"I'm guessing you probably have no clue about what's going on, do you, Zolf J. Kimbley?"

_Zolf J. Kimbley?_

The name struck him like a match in the dark of a wet, damp, cave.

He said nothing, though, and merely shook his head.

"Well, I'm not sure about how to begin, seeing as how you don't remember anything, correct?" Gregory mused, taking another drag. "But I'm sure I could clear up a few things for the moment."

He stared at this boy-- this "Gregory"-- as if he was a guardian angel of some kind. He could have been wondering for days, weeks, months, even _years_, he had feared, not remembering a thing but small and random glimpses of a life that he couldn't even remember living. But here was Gregory, fallen from heaven, perhaps just a beautiful angel in hideous guise.

Or… At least, that's what he thought.

"For starters, I'm not really Gregory. That was the name of the old soul of this body. My real name is…" (He paused emphatically at this point, a pierced eyebrow raising for suspense.)"..._Greed_."

His heart froze up in his chest. The one syllable, the one word, made all the memories come flooding back.

That one word was like a key unlocking a lock and setting him free.

"Greed…" he whispered, almost like he had the impulse to taste the word on his tongue for himself.

He remembered a bond of trust, he remembered stolen glances, and those eyes… He remembered how those eyes had examined him so lovingly, yet were to be filled with hate at a betrayal.

A betrayal of _his_ doing.

"Yup, that's me, and don't ever forget it, Kimbley," Gregory-- better yet, _Greed_, said.

Kimbley. There was that name again.

"So… Zolf J. Kimbley is _my_ name, right…?" he asked, trying to avoid eye-contact with Greed.

"No doubt about it. I saw _you_ in his eyes. Every other time, I knew it was him. But now I know it's you…" Greed said quietly. "And now… We can be... _together_..." he trailed, not even needing to say the rest of the words-- a sort of vow that he could tell he had been longing to say for quite some amount of painful time.

And so, so suddenly, more memories came back like a knife into an already festering-wound, stabbing deeply into him, forcing him to know forever and never forget.

He-- no, _Kimbley_, now that he knew that name was rightfully his-- looked up to Greed, feeling an almost-familiar smirk mold back to his mouth.

"I think… maybe we should start small, Greed. Say, just as friends? I'm still getting used to all this," he fibbed.

He remembered his name was Zolf J. Kimbley-- that he had learned the skill of something called "alchemy" in another life, that he had killed without care, that he had been in a military of some kind and jailed for his disregard of orders, and that he had joined and betrayed this boy-- once a man, or something much more frightening-- before him. (A Homun-- something...? Well, it wasn't important now.)

He just needed a bit of a jolt, that's all. A knocking-into that would set his records straight.

But he decided it'd be best to feign ignorance. To keep his hand hidden, he thought.

Greed looked a little let down, but nodded his head and faked a confident smile. (It was fake, obviously. He was terrible at acting.)

"Very well, Crimson. How about this deal? After school, we'll meet in front of the building and go over to your place and we'll… _catch up_. How's that?" Greed asked, grinning ear-to-ear like a sly tiger with an ingenious plan.

"...Sounds good, _Gregory._" Kimbley said snidely, grinning right back.

"Maybe we won't have to do much talking after all, _Zach_," Greed replied, throwing his cigarette onto the gravel and stomping it with a metal-studded black boot.

Then he departed Kimbley's company around the corner of the building.


	4. IV

_Disclaimer: Me. Ownership. None. But this we know. And this is GreKim yaoi--if you don't like, read until you do. 'w'_

**AN: Ugh. Besides a new and fabulous introduction, this is pretty much a filler. But... a fabulous one! XD Also, there might be some harsh language in a few spots, but it's to be suspected, and it's probably not as bad as I think. I'm just warning anyone who might think to complain because I DIDN'T warn. Just read, and feel free to tell me what you think! C:**

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**IV: "Songen" To "Jiyuu" De Nujun Shiteru Yo**

The next mystery to solve was how he had gotten there. If he was indeed like Greed, then he was a soul who had taken the place of another soul.

The question was-- how had he gotten there?

And where had he even come from…?

Hopefully, Greed would answer a few of these questions, and many more, if he was really that useful for information.

For the next hour or so, he wandered around the inside of the school-building, telling curious teachers that he was just running some errands. They all seemed to believe him, which was actually kinda nice. For once, he wasn't immediately the first to be accused of committing some kind of atrocity.

The bell rang, and all the children began filing into the cafeteria for what Kimbley guessed was lunch. He was absolutely famished after skipping breakfast that morning. But he decided to wait for his "friends" to come and find him. They were, after all, his tour guides in this second life. So, he took a seat at a random lunch-table, ignoring the evil glares of the kids dressed in all-black with dark make-up smeared under their eyes. (Astonishing. That's just the word this situation called for.)

Distantly, he heard a voice calling out his name-- that is, _Zach's_ name.

"Zach! Where the Hell were you in second…?" Mary asked upon reaching his position. She looked really scared, so Kimbley decided to try and ease her fears.

"Gree-- Uhm-- _Gregory Glass_ wanted to talk with me. He said it was important, so I decided it was best to see what was wrong," he answered, honestly, for once.

Mary's eyes widened in horror.

"You talked to _GLASS_…? What the Hell-- _WHY_?" she asked him, almost on the verge of going into hysterics.

"Well, I thought it'd be nice to make friends with him."

"Zach, I thought we talked about how you should stay _away_ from him. He's an asshole and a half. You _KNOW_ that," she whispered to him, her eyes darting nervously to the black-dressed kids. They didn't seem to care anymore, though. They were all busy doing their thing, which wasn't much. (What does one do but stare...? Honestly, he'd find entertainment in just _looking_.) One, with extremely white skin and freakish ice-blue eyes, seemed to be the leader. He was talking about something or another while playing idly with a piercing in his lip.

The trends in this universe were the _weirdest_…

"Well, maybe I know and just wanted to try something new," Kimbley answered her. Whatever she was freaking out about, Kimbley could care less. Whatever Gregory Glass was infamous for, Kimbley was probably worse, ten times over.

Mary was about to say something when Lawrence and Dean approached them.

"What the Hell are you two doin' over here? This is... the _Goth table,_" Dean bent down and whispered nervously to Mary.

The pale kid looked over to the four of them, giving Kimbley something of a snide stare. And yet, it seemed to be so…

Kimbley looked away.

Yet another familiar face that was completely bizarre to him.

"C'mon, Zach. Let's get outta here," Mary whispered to him, getting up from the table.

Kimbley followed, passing right by the white "Goth" kid, who gave him yet another stare.

There was just something about the way he looked at him…

Suddenly, he felt Lawrence pushing him along feverishly. Kimbley didn't object. Those cold eyes were a kind that he felt he had gotten lost in once, because he hadn't been careful.

He had a feeling that they'd meet again.

The four took a seat at a lunch table in the corner. Kimbley had a feeling this was some kind of "reject" area. It was fine by him, though. He knew he had always been something of a reject.

Here at the table sat several others: a bald kid, fervidly squishing up his peas into his mashed potatoes, another bald kid with a bad scar running down his head like a lightning-bolt (he seemed to be sleeping, or something), and a blond boy with a bad facial-hair problem.

Yup, they were definitely the rejects of this school.

"Glad you guys could join. You enjoy the company of the Goths?" the first bald kid asked, holding up his green-and-yellow fork proudly.

"Benton, please, you _know _we'd never spend time with those Marilyn Manson wannabes!" Dean answered, blatantly offended.

The blond kid smirked, saying teasingly, "Sure, sure. I coulda swore Frankie was checkin' you out, Mary."

"Oh sure, Will. I'm _so_ sure that fag has the hots for Mary," Dean answered for her, ensuring the venom dripped from his voice.

Obviously, Dean had a thing for Mary. (Laughable, really, yet Kimbley could see it happening. Not that she'd really go for it. She looked a bit too... independent.)

Kimbley looked over to the "Goth" table, and looking at that pale kid again, he realized he was the "Frankie" of which they spoke.

Frank…

"You guys mind if I steal a seat here for the day?"

Kimbley looked up to see Greed, standing with a tray in one hand, and his other hand placed on his hip. (A nonchalant pose. _So_ Greed.)

"And _why_ would you want to sit--"

"By all means, _Gregory_, take a load off…" Kimbley cut into Will's answer, looking up into Greed's amethyst eyes again. It was some sort of addiction, he had to admit. (Maybe it was just the masochist in him, but...)

Greed took a seat in-between Dean and Kimbley and set his bag at his feet under the table, making sure to scoot closer to Kimbley than to Dean. Lawrence, Will, and Benton eyed him disapprovingly from across the table, and Mary squirmed a bit in her seat beside Kimbley. Scarred-boy was still fast-asleep.

"I'm surprised you guys are letting me sit here, seeing as how you like to classify me as… a, ah, _devil-worshipper_…? Is that right...?" Greed asked, ripping a piece of his roll and dipping into his potatoes.

The four across the table stayed silent, especially scarred-kid. Mary placed a hand on Kimbley's arm, but he ignored it.

"But, you guys, I'm not really all that bad. I mean, just ask _Zach_ here. _He_ thinks I'm a pretty nice guy, right…?" Greed went on, his eyes moving over to Kimbley.

"Sure, Greg. You're _great_," Kimbley answered. He wasn't sure whether to be a sarcastic ass about it or to try and actually be _serious_ (no, seriously). He combined the two together, so everyone could win.

"Excuse me, Gregory, but why aren't you sitting with us?" came a cold voice from behind them.

Kimbley turned to see the pale kid, glaring down at them. More specifically, Kimbley.

Then came a pang.

_Frank… Archer_.

"Oh, _Frankie_, I was just making friends, is all," Greed answered. Obviously, the two hated each other, but had to play their respective parts.

Kimbley smelled something foul going on between the two.

"Fine, whatever, Gregory," he answered flatly, not the least bit interested in Greed at all. He turned to Kimbley and turned on the charm. "My name's Frank, Zach. Feel free to sit by me whenever."

And with that, Frank walked away, the metal chains on his dragging black-jeans ringing with each of his steps.

After a while, all was quiet.

"…See that? He was hitting on Zach. I _so_ told you he was a fag," Dean muttered.

All the others began to laugh, except for Greed and Kimbley. Honestly, they weren't aware of the meaning of the joke. Maybe if they knew what it meant, they'd be laughing too.

But not now. Things were getting serious.

As Greed glared after Frank angrily, Kimbley began to wonder who was who in this world. Who was another unfamiliar face and who was his best friend…?

For now, though, he decided to content himself with the contents of Greed's tray, seeing as he was quite engrossed at being pissed-off. He picked up a piece of chicken-leg and took a ravenous bite, as if he had never had anything to eat in his entire life.

"Uhm… Zach…? I thought that you were a… _vegetarian_…?" Will asked, looking a little horrified.

No wonder this Zach was so damn pale.

"Well, I changed my mind," Kimbley answered, taking another bite of the chicken.

Greed was done with his evil glaring and had turned back around to associate with the rest of the group. He didn't even seem to mind the fact that Kimbley had slipped food off of his tray. He actually looked as if he was _enjoying_ watching him eat.

The others, though, all were a bit hesitant.

Perhaps they were wondering what had happened to their friend…?

Well, he got possessed.


	5. V

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Also, this is GreKim yaoi. If you don't like it, read it again and again until you do. ;D_

**AN: This one's for the Archer fans. ;3**

**I apologize if it feels like these are fillers. I'm getting somewhere, I swear!**

**I hope you enjoy! C:**

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**V: Dou Ka Doua Ka Jikan Wo Tomete**

The rest of the lunch-hour remained uneventful. Greed remained rather silent, surprisingly, and even moved away after eating his lunch. Kimbley simply brushed it off as a "I'm-not-supposed-to-be-your-friend" deal, which was just fine with him. (Actually, it kind of hurt. How to put this...? Well, he missed _familiarity_, even if it _was_ in the form of potential vying hate/excruciating love.)

Still, he'd have the whole afternoon to chat with him, anyway.

Kimbley decided it'd be best to tail his "friends" to all his classes; thankfully, he had all of his classes with at least one of them, from the conversations about teachers and such going on around him at the lunch-table. That meant he could just follow obediently, and they wouldn't be any more suspicious than they already were because he was going where he was meant to go.

After the lunch bell rang, he tailed Dean to the "Calc." class.

It turned out that "calc." was just a short way of saying "calculus", which was something Kimbley was actually rather familiar with.

He breezed through the class, and it didn't seem to draw any unwanted attention. Obviously, Zach had been a smart kid before Kimbley got here. (Thankfully. Kimbley wasn't about to pretend to be some dim-bulbed dimwit.)

Afterwards, he followed the scarred-kid (whose name turned out to be "Dillon" after Dean called to him) to a wide court built inside the school.

Dillon called it "gym."

"I _hate_ this class…" he whined as he led Kimbley into a room filled with lockers.

As Kimbley entered, he froze.

All the boys were all _undressing_. (And most were, to put it mildly, _unattractive_. Not that Kimbley had any kind of regular taste in men, but _still_...)

A sudden memory flashed through his mind like lightning.

He recalled a place like this, only it smelled worse, and it was filled with thugs of all shapes and sizes, of all creeds and origins, packed together, scrounging for a decent pair of pants among the piles of dirty laundry.

He remembered it was called "prison."

"So, we meet again, _Zach_…"

Kimbley whirled around, coming nose-to-nose with pale blue eyes and sheet-white skin.

_Archer_.

"Hello, Frank, pleased to see you here," Kimbley said coolly, trying not to panic. To be completely honest, though, the boy freaked him out. He was just so… _pale_. (Translucent, like a friggin' _ghost_. _'Get some sun, boy!'_ is the kind of phrase someone needs to toss at him.)

Frank walked over to a locker, banged on it twice, and it creaked open.

"Your clothes, Zach," he said with an icy voice to match the frigid temperature of his eyes, motioning to the contents within the locker.

Kimbley paused, unsure of what to do. All of the other kids had already dressed and were filing out into the large room to be accounted for. Even Dillon had already gone out, leaving Kimbley without any allies to aid him.

He decided, though, to walk over to the locker. He reached in to pluck out a shirt--

Frank grabbed his arm and pulled Kimbley close to him. The sensation, so familiar, jolted Kimbley back into memory.

_'This is… Frank Archer… He's… the one who… made me betray Greed…'_

The memory struck him like ice-- like the ice of Archer's eyes.

"Let's be honest, now, Kimbley. I know who you are, and you know who I am. So we can skip through any petty pretences you may have of lying about not knowing anything," Archer hissed, pushing Kimbley into the locker adjacent his. The impact made a loud "bang," which could have easily been passed off as someone slamming a locker closed.

Suddenly, Kimbley felt a vulnerability in his position. A vulnerability he did _not_ like (along with a slew of many others. Still, this one was practically list-topping.).

"You will _not_ go back to Greed-- not after all _we've_ been through. _I_ gave you back all you lost, _I_ gave you the protection you needed, _I_ gave you a cushy Lieutenant Colonel position that allowed you to run rampant like you had as a Major, _I_ picked you up when you had hit the bottom. _I'M_ the one you should respect-- the one you should want-- the one you should…"

Archer trailed off, his face coming in closer to Kimbley's.

And Kimbley had nowhere to run.

"C'mon, time to go, boys!!" yelled a loud and booming voice into the locker room. Kimbley could only guess it was the instructor of this class.

Archer backed away, saying quietly, "We'll talk later, Kimbley, when time allows." He then began walking over to his own locker, probably to retrieve his own clothes.

Kimbley quickly undressed and redressed, checking over his shoulder to make sure Archer wasn't watching, and then ran out of the locker room as quickly as he could, not even bothering to see if Archer was behind him. He wanted that freak as far away from him as possible. Just his mere presence had struck a sore chord in his being.

He met up with Dillon outside and doubled over, panting. He hadn't realized how fast he had been sprinting.

"What took ya?" Dillon inquired, looking concerned.

"Uhm-- just… a locker-jam," Kimbley made up, hoping that he would inquire no further.

Dillon seemed satisfied, though, as the instructor made his way out into the middle of the room. (Standard-issue teacher, it seemed. Clothes too small, ego too big, the regular drill.)

"Alright, today we're gonna be goin' through the finer points of two-hand touch football," the instructor barked as he took his place behind a pedestal and made marks in what Kimbley guessed to be a grade-book of some kind.

He could hear a few of the kids groan, and a few cheer in their own weird ways. Kimbley didn't know what the Hell "two-hand touch football" was, so he couldn't cheer or boo wither way.

"Alright, line up on the yellow line. You guys know what to do."

_'No… I don't,'_ Kimbley thought to himself, annoyed. He wasn't the slightest bit pleased to play some game he didn't even know the rules to. (Games, he recalled, he never liked. Too many rules. Where's the fun in that?)

But, he got on the line anyway, beside Dillon, who looked about as nervous as Kimbley felt. Obviously, Zach hadn't chosen the most… athletically inclined friends.

Two of the kids broke from the line-- one was a girl with back-length black hair tied back into a loose ponytail, and the other… was Archer.

Of course.

It wasn't as if luck had been having its way with him _all day long_. No,_ not at all_...

"Pick your teams wisely," the coach warned, grinning ear-to-ear evilly.

_Sadist._

The girl went first, and called out some name that didn't ring any bells.

Then Archer made a choice.

"_Zach_."

Kimbley could hear a few gasps and whispers coming from the other children. Obviously, Zach _himself_ wasn't the most athletically inclined either.

He walked over to Archer's side, his feet feeling as heavy as iron.

He had planned to stay as far away from Archer as possible, but it seemed that fate kept pushing the two together.

_'Damn you, Fate,'_ Kimbley thought again, his own inner-commentary directing his anger at inanimate and abstract ideas. He knew it wouldn't do much good, but it felt nice to push the blame onto something without feelings of any kind.

As the two pulled teams together, Kimbley felt himself spacing out. Archer was so sure of all his choices-- he never hesitated, not even once. His voice never faltered. He was so… confident.

Just the way Kimbley remembered him.

Or… as far as he _could_ remember him.

Eventually, two teams had been rallied together, standing beside their team captains, awaiting orders.

Suddenly, Kimbley was being pulled into a huddle-type-thing, and Archer began to bark orders. He tried to follow what was being said, but it all came out as a bunch of gibberish.

"…Zach, you've been nominated the quarterback. You receive, and just run like Hell. Dillon and I will be watching your back. Got it?"

Kimbley snapped back. Suddenly, he felt he should start sweating.

Archer, though, took his silence as "affirmative."

The group dispersed, making a long line in the center of the court, facing off against the other team.

"Zach, get behind me," Archer ordered, making Kimbley feel as uncomfortable as possible.

Archer held between his hands a leathery-brown, oblong-shaped ball of some kind. After shouting some kind of jabber-talk, he threw the ball backwards between his legs, which Kimbley caught with an extremeuncertainty.

"RUN, IDIOT, _RUN_!!" a voice behind him shouted.

Before Kimbley could react, or even try to conceive the rules of this insidious game, he was pummeled by approximately five-hundred pounds of children-body-mass, causing him to collapse to the ground and thump his head on the hard-wood floor. And this was no recoverable thump, either. No, this was a full-on, Fate's-gonna-eat-your-guts-on-a-sandwich thwack that resonated in the entire space of the gymnasium.

The coach blew his whistle angrily, or maybe Kimbley's head had finally blown an air-gasket. Either way, the kids removed themselves from Kimbley's crumpled body as the coach began bellowing, "This is _two-hand touch_ football, people!! That means you play with just _TWO_ _HANDS_!!"

As Kimbley's consciousness began to fade from in to out, he looked up into the blinding gym lights to see Archer standing over him, a proud, "I-might-rape-you-later" smirk on his face.

He noted then not to play "two-hand touch" _ever_ again.


	6. VI

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything, again, but you know this. Plus, this is GreKim yaoi. Don't like? Read continuously and you will._

**AN: Oh, what's this? Explanations? ...Maybe. XD**

**Not much to say, except Happy Valentine's Day! ...Or Single's Awareness Day, also known as... S.A.D.! XD I love my friend Anna. She's so funny.**

**ANYway, this chapter is rather appropriate for tomorrow's special holiday (in a way, but I'm weird and my brain often finds itself connecting random things together). Surprisingly. I'm usually not lucky when it comes to timing.**

**So enjoy, and reviews are always loved! C:**

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**VI: Mebaete Ta Kanjou Kitte Kuyan De**

"…C'mon, Tandem, lemme drive him home. I doubt he'll be catching the bus anytime soon."

"…And I suppose you'll be carrying him to your car as well…?"

"Sure. Don't worry, Tandem, I can carry a stick like him with one arm."

Kimbley could hear voices talking, though faintly, as if they were in a tunnel. He guessed it was just one of the perks to being partially unconscious. (He wondered, too, only briefly, what those other perks might be...)

"I'm trusting you to take very good care of Mr. Kenderson, Mr. Glass," the voice of Mr. Tandem said very slowly. He had a deep, lethargic voice, like a voice you'd expect out of a turtle or a snail. That is, if animals could talk.

"Of course, Tandem! I'll take plenty good care of Zach. No worries!" came Glass's voice, _Greed's_ voice, confidently.

A few clunking footsteps drew closer to Kimbley and then suddenly he was being lifted from his laying position by a pair of very strong arms.

"…And don't drop him," added Tandem's voice again.

"Geez, no worries, sir. I got 'im."

"Have a good day, Mr. Glass."

Then Kimbley could feel them moving forward, the momentum of his dangling arms swinging like complete dead-weight beneath him. Greed's footsteps continued on down the hallway, and could feel his body shift as he pushed open the door into the streaming, hot, blistering sunlight.

"Alright, Crimson, wake up," Greed's voice said as he shook Kimbley, gently, in his arms.

"…Just take me to that car, or whatever. God, my head is _killing_ me," Kimbley mumbled, taking the chance to bury his face into Greed's chest groggily.

Greed sighed, and Kimbley could feel him moving swiftly away from the school. With one arm still holding onto Kimbley with a death-grip, the other forced open a lock which game way with a sharp "click." And then he was sitting in a hot leather seat, the air humid and sticky in the car. He never once opened his eyes-- he had tried a while ago, and nothing was coming into focus. He felt a strap pulled into place over his chest, probably for safety-reasons in this version of the car.

Another click sounded, and the car shifted as Greed took a seat in the driver's side.

"You awake, Crimson?" came his voice haughtily as the engine roared to life.

Kimbley started, once again trying his eyes. He looked to his left, and there sat Gregory-- _Greed_-- grinning at him like a sly cat. That is, if cats could really grin.

Much anymore, Kimbley was starting to believe in the impossible. So, maybe cats _could_ grin...

"I… guess," he muttered, honestly annoyed at Greed's chipper attitude.

He took the time to examine the interior of this "car."

He recalled there had been cars where he had come from, but nothing like this. This model was sleek, on the inside at least, with a panel of buttons and lights all held together by a smooth black dashboard. Atop the windshield was a rectangular mirror, which Greed began to adjust before grabbing hold of one of the controls and pressing his foot to a pedal out of Kimbley's view, causing them to jolt backwards.

At least the small vents built into the dash were cooling them off a bit.

"That was quite a nasty bump on your head, Crimson," Greed began coolly as he began the process of driving them forward on a black-top pavement that led to the road. "Well, aside from our little conversation this morning, I'm sure you've got a lot to ask, and I'm sure I have a lot to tell."

There remained a silence, in which Kimbley began reflecting. He was a killer-- that much was for sure, and he had practically been the death of Greed. But, from everything he interpreted, he knew, in a sick twisted way, he was in love with him.

But… _why?_ The one little question was a fright within itself...

"I'm pretty sure you've gotten some memories back. Do you recall… _betraying_ me…? Hmm…?" Greed asked, not really at all angry, but still bitingly sarcastic all the same.

Kimbley actually allowed himself to flinch-- he had had that one coming for a long time.

He decided it was time to be completely honest with Greed, if he was planning on turning over a new leaf.

"I do remember some things but… really… I can't remember a lot," he answered slowly, examining the palms of his hands, expecting to see the tattoos he remembered when he first woke up to be there. There was nothing there, though. Just plain old un-inked, uninteresting skin.

"That's bullshit, Crimson. I know you know that you were a grade-A psycho-bomber with a little taste for betrayal. And when you died, you passed through that damn Gate and landed here. So, I'm pretty sure we've got all that established."

_The_ _Gate_.

It all sort of flashed before his eyes, like a spark coming into contact with gasoline. An epiphany made of fireworks.

He could see his death, and the emptiness of the Gate, pulling his soul inward into the black nothing, the frightening eyes of all the specters around him, looming and taunting, watching him as he fell inside. The feeling of loss-- and the feeling of ultimate truth-- the feelings that all the cynics have as they step into God's territory… They all flooded into him, but he knew he would never step out again.

But here he was… back outside the Gate.

...On the _other_ side.

"The Gate…" Kimbley resounded, pulling down his sleeves as he realized the wounds on his wrists were showing.

"Exactly. I'm guessing that somehow, Gregory got a hold of some kind of valuable information pertaining to Alchemic-devil-yadda and I ended up here, in this body, after he did some idiotic incantation. The same happened to that Archer-- he and Gregory had been friends, and we both ended up here, in this damn dimension, after they did whatever they did together."

The odds dumbfounded Kimbley. Who would have thought that in this dimension, the versions of Greed and Archer had been friends…?

Simply astounding.

"Wait, I thought Homunculi didn't have souls…?" Kimbley butted in, suddenly gaining back a memory or two.

"Of course we have souls, Crimson. Not the kind you humans are familiar with within yourselves, though. We have our own kind-- pretty much, a soul without full memories to go with it. Honestly, I don't get it all, but I don't think anyone's supposed to.

"Look, the point is, Archer and I woke up inside some kind of red circle with black-candles and all the witch-craft crap you could imagine," Greed continued on, on a roll with his speech. "Of course, confusion ensued, but then we figured out who-was-who and what-was-what after several months. Unfortunately, we realized we'd have to rely on each other if we were to get anything done."

"…And he told you I was _dead_, didn't he?" Kimbley cut in, realization dawning upon him. "And then you befriended Zach and told him to do the same ritual to have me stuck here with _you_!"

"…Just as smart as I remember you, Crimson," Greed finished proudly, turning the steering wheel into the driveway that led to Zach's-- no, Kimbley's house.

Zach was gone, now. It was just Kimbley left here.

"But _why_? I want to know _why_. _Why_ am I here…? What the Hell's the point…?" Kimbley murmured, trying to get reason to wrap itself around his head (which he had been trying for quite some time, but was still completely incapable of making the two ends of reason meet).

The car stopped with a jolt. Kimbley could see Janie playing in the front yard with a shaggy white dog, giggling her little heart out as her long black curly hair flew out behind her as she ran from the playful animal.

"I'm as greedy as Hell, Crimson, as you know, and I'm willing to do anything to get what I want. Even if it means getting stuck in some shitty alternate universe with my competition, even if the one I want betrayed me when I trusted him the most, even if it will take me eons to be able to form a trust like that again…" Greed leaned over the cup-holders to Kimbley's seat, the back of his hand brushing Kimbley's cheek. "…I'm willing to do anything to make you remember that you loved me… and to make you all _mine_."


	7. VII

_Disclaimer: I own as much as any yaoi-fanfiction-writer does._

**AN: I just realized how much I am terrified of making Kimbley OOC. Which is happening, slowly yet surely. Still, I'm doing it correctly, right...? I mean, it's not just completely random, right...? --bites nails--**

**...I've been reading "Those Lacking Spines" by Organization VI on here (GREAT story! It points out all of the Kingdom Hearts fanfic trash that somehow or another ends up on the net), and now I'm friggin' paranoid. o.o **

**But I must press forward! On to chapter seven, my pretties! --witch cackle--**

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**VII: Dare Ni Mo Kimi No Kawari Nante Nareru Hazu Wa Nai Kara**

Somehow, Greed had managed to have dinner with them.

Kimbley's mother (it was strange to think of her in that way, but he would have to accept it as a fact now) sat near the stove in one of the chairs, making sure the oven didn't overheat. She stared attentively at Greed, wary of his presence. However, Kimbley didn't fail to notice how she kept massaging her temple, as if in some kind of pain. He didn't make anything of it, though. People do that all the time, right?

"So… you say you're a-- a friend of Zach's from school…?" she questioned haltingly, making sure she chose her words carefully. Honestly, Gregory must have been an axe murderer with a masochistic-streak, what with his _looks_, before Greed possessed him. Now, he looked like a _greedy_ axe murderer with a masochistic-streak.

"Yup. We're best buds," Greed answered, taking a bite from an apple he had pilfered from the fruit-bowl on the table.

Janie had left the dog outside and she was curiously looking at Greed, her wide blue eyes shining in fascination.

"…Zach's never mentioned you," his mother said flatly.

"_Really_, now? We hang out all the time, I'm surprised he never told you about me," Greed said, acting overly-surprised. He was such a bad actor.

"…Hmph, well, Zach seldom talks about school. He used to, until a few weeks ago."

It seemed like no one cared that Kimbley (still technically Zach, but whatever) was standing there, listening to a conversation that was _technically_ about him.

"Do those hurt?" Janie asked Greed, her eyes scanning over all the piercing in Greed's face.

Kimbley had to admit, she was damn adorable. At least she wasn't like most kids-- overly annoying and not cute. At all.

Greed grinned, and hoisted Janie up into his arms and onto his lap (carefully, of course).

"'Course not! They're actually pretty nice to have," he answered sweetly, causing Janie to giggle.

Kimbley would have never guessed Greed was so good with kids. He struck him as the kind of guy to axe a child in the face before lifting them up onto his lap.

Kimbley's mother smiled, looking quite relieved, just as the timer on the oven dinged.

"Oh, that should be the lasagna," she murmured, reaching into a drawer and fitting oven mitts on her hands, which Kimbley realized were shaking slightly.

"Mom, actually, I'm not all that hungry. I think I'd like to go to my room and rest a little while," Kimbley told her, getting up from his seat and pushing it under the table.

"Zach, don't be rude. We have a _guest_, for once," she whispered to him as she hoisted the lasagna onto the table.

Greed was listening in, of course, and replied sweetly with little Janie on his lap, "Oh, it's fine, Ms. Kenderson. If Zach's tired, he should get his rest."

After a moment, he added, "You know, I just might join him. Some rest sounds pretty good right now."

Kimbley's mother eyed him strangely again, but then decided it best to smile.

"Fine. But, please, no loud music. I feel a headache coming on."

"No problem, Mom," Kimbley called back, trying to add an essence of child-like innocence to his voice, but it coming out rather... not. In all honesty, he wasn't the least bit child-like.

Kimbley led Greed back to his room at the end of the narrow hallway and shut the door behind them. He thought maybe it was best that their discussions be kept between just the two of them.

Greed milled around the room, smugly looking over the hardly-varnished dresser, the clothes-scattered green carpeting, and the tarnished drugged-up and spit-out rockers' posters before sitting himself onto the bed with gratuitous grandeur.

"Geez, Crimson, is this what you've actually been reduced to...? I mean, _Nirvana_...? Please, my dear Kimbley, tell me you're reconsidering re-furnishing the place, and _soon_," he said, all the while placing a cigarette from his messenger bag between his fangs and taking a hasty puff after its lighting. (Chain-smoker...? Kimbley had become frighteningly aware of this realization after this particular cigarette's lighting.)

Kimbley sighed, not really understanding the whole point of this little digression from what he was trying to obtain. Honestly, _he_ most certainly was _not_ the one to decorate his room in "_Nirvanas_"... whatever those were.

And judging by the blank look Kimbley must have been giving, Greed took one last puff before saying in an exasperated tone, "Of course, I'm getting too far ahead of myself, aren't I?"

Kimbley nodded, past jaded with everyone knowing all and telling him nothing-- nothing but these infinitely un-bemusing flashbacks fuel him with _any_ kind of know-how in this dimension.

And so, with a few pats placed at Greed's side, he offered Kimbley a seat. And perhaps... an explanation as t how life worked in this confounded universe.

A question would suffice to get the ball rolling.

"So tell me, Greed. How long have you and… _Frank_... been here?" he questioned slowly as Greed breathed in more smoke which was immediately discarded through his nostrils.

"A year, maybe. There-abouts. For some weird reason, time here just seems to be moving faster-- at least, that's my opinion on the matter. Maybe... being human is all about keeping track with time, and such. I don't know, I've never been a genius on the matter of being human, if you catch my drift."

Actually, Kimbley _did_, which he kind of wished he didn't on the matter. Recalling that Greed had, at one time or another, been a soulless doll (well, not from what Greed had told him, but still... Old beliefs die hard...) did nothing to ease the tensions around them. Still... he liked Greed. It was strange, the sort of sensation when he was around him, a sort of... queasy ease. Like walking a tight-rope, knowing that any moment you could fall to your death, but knowing that a safety-net of some kind was right there to catch you. Dangerous-- yet still perfectly fun.

Oh, on go the contradictions.

"So, I'm guessing you've gotten used to this world and whatnot, am I right?" Kimbley asked, risking his hand in swiping one of Greed's cigarettes.

"Well, mostly-- I thought you didn't smoke?"

"_Didn't_ is the phrase. I do now," Kimbley answered quickly, groping at Greed's lighter and finally succeeding in getting the flame to come to life.

Actually, he _didn't_. Honestly, he had never smoked in his life, as far as his memories served him.

He lit up as casually as he could, though not without some difficulty, and took a deep inhale.

It burned. There's really no way to describe it, actually. He coughed, once, twice, thinking, _'How could Greed enjoy this shit?'_ before his lungs adjusted to the terrible organ-killing draft of smoky-death.

This _definitely_ was, in no way, to become a habit.

"Y'know, Crimson... you're kinda... _sexy_ when you smoke," Greed hissed, one of his hands choosing to travel along one of Kimbley's thighs, though cautiously.

Kimbley took another (forced) drag.

"Really, now?"

Was there any way in _Hell_ that he was about to succumb to this come-on?

...Maybe.

"Really, Greed, you didn't want to come here to discuss anything. Truth is, you want me. I remember it, now. I could just... _feel_ your longing. It's... funny."

"_Really_, now? It's... _funny_?" Greed asked, on the verge of annoyance, on the verge of allowing his hand to leave the sanctity of Kimbley's warm thigh, on the verge of just _leaving_.

"Yeah, it's just... I--"

"What?"

Kimbley paused, his breath falling from his lips like the black smoke from a dragon's fiery teeth. Was it to be this way...? Was this destiny...?

Well, screw destiny. This was his choice.

"...I wanted you, too."

The air lingered, stagnant, a time after the words came. Honestly, Kimbley hadn't thought-- barely even _conceived_-- that that would _actually_ dint Greed's usually oh-so confident self.

But it did.

And then came the, "You're serious? You're not just pulling my leg, here? You're not _leading me on_, are you?"

To which Kimbley answered, "Kiss me."

Their lips met, though hesitantly, and all the loves-at-first-sight, all the untold promises, all the much needed _release_... it all seemed worth it. It all seemed... _right._

By now, Kimbley's heart was in the process of breaking from his ribcage. He pulled away, quickly, trying to get his eyes to snap back into focus on Greed's face.

"Well, you told me to kiss you," Greed mumbled, stealing away Kimbley's cigarette which dangled loosely between his index and middle fingers and swiftly taking a drag.

"I was sure you'd refuse, given the circumstances of my betrayal."

"That... That doesn't matter anymore. Sure, it hurt, but now... now there's nothing to take you away from me. Being the greedy bastard that I am, I'm gonna hold onto you, never let you go, and do whatever I want with you. Say... as punishment...?" Greed finished off his explanation with one of his patented jeering grins.

"Hnn... I like the way you think..." Kimbley sighed, taking yet another (by now, extremely pained) drag on the cigarette. It still tasted like Greed-- sweet, ashy, old, despite the foul smoke-flavour.

Greed leaned back in, his breath brushing up against Kimbley's exposed neck, causing the latter to shiver.

"So, will this wanting of yours get me any benefits...?" Greed asked, his hand exploring further into Kimbley's thigh.

"Well... may--"

"Zachey, Greggy!! There's something wrong with Mommy!!" came a little high-pitched voice which resonated inside the house's small interior.


	8. VIII

_Disclaimer: I own as much as any GreKim yaoi fanfic writer does._

**AN: Well, something sorta happens in this chapter. XD**

**ANYway, I want to thank all the people who have reviewed for me. Trust me, if you read this, please review! I'm a review whore, undoubtedly. I'm considering asking some of the "Dear Pendragon" reviewers to come over here and read this. XD**

**So, here's chapter eight. Shall the cliffy be resolved...?**

**...Perhaps. -.-

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**

VIII: Yugan Da Zanzou O Keshi Saritai No Wa... 

Janie's small frame came crashing into the door (Greed managed to pull his hand away at just the right time), her wild blue eyes filled to the brim with tears.

"Zachey, Mommy, she's--" she breathed, her chest heaving, frightened to the point of stuttering uncontrollably.

"Shh, Janie, where is she?" he asked, getting up from the bed and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder (which he wasn't very good at doing, seeing as he'd never been required to reassure _anyone_ in _anything_).

Her small hand laced in his and she led him out into the kitchen, her feet stumbling in what looked like too-big "mommy's shoes." Greed followed shortly, though mainly out of curiosity over concern.

In the kitchen, Kimbley could see his mother's outline, slumped in her chair, her face flat against the table, her arms hanging lifelessly at her sides. She looked like a mannequin-- still and unmoving, perhaps dead.

"Mommy, Mommy, wake up!!" Janie screamed, breaking her hand-hold on Kimbley and running over to her mother and shaking her lifeless body.

Kimbley looked over to Greed, who looked calm as he got out a small device, flipped it open, and pressed three numbers in the control-pad casually.

"I'm calling an ambulance to get your mommy, okay, Janie? Buck up, everything will be okay, little lady," Greed said in a sweet tone, trying to get the bawling girl to compose herself.

But Janie held onto her mother's hand, her breaths coming in short gasps.

"B--But M--Mommy's not w--waking up..." Janie cried, her cheeks red with the exertion of pumping oxygen between her tears.

"Yes... We need an ambulance _immediately_. Bring life-support... It's serious. Her name's... You know? We're at-- Oh, okay. Got it, thanks," Greed mumbled into the device (which Kimbley guessed was a small phone of some kind), closing it up when he was done. He turned to Kimbley, saying quietly, "They'll be here soon. Go over and get her away from her."

Kimbley slowly walked to the girl, pressing his hand to the back of her shoulder.

"Hush, Janie, it's gonna be okay. Mom'll be fine, alright?" he said again and again, trying to get Janie to relax from her near-hysterical state. His hands stroked her long strands of hair back from her face. For once... he was desperate to make someone stop crying.

She clutched his shirt in her tiny fists, her small chubby face buried in his stomach.

Sirens faded into sound, and lights flared outside the windows.

The paramedics came through the door (after politely knocking, of course) and pulled Kimbley's mother onto a stretcher.

"Hey, you three, get into the ambulance. It's fine if you go with her. Just watch the minor," one of the paramedics yelled over the clatter of hospital implements, oxygen masks, and rolling wheels.

Janie wasn't the only one in a silly stupor; Kimbley felt his mind numbing and distancing.

What had happened to the plan of making a new life? So far, things were not turning out as well as they could've been...

Greed was the one to stay calm. Taking Kimbley by the hand (who had Janie by the hand), he pulled him outside and towards the flashing ambulance that the paramedic had been talking about, which had Kimbley's mother being pushed inside. There were several (though only one was really needed), parked at awkward angles, dotting the street. The lights blinked on-and-off, temporarily blinding at moments.

The three piled into the roomy back, where several doctors (or nurses, Kimbley wasn't sure which) were humming over his mother, with masks and tools and other such instruments.

He could see, as the ambulance swerved onto the main road and blared its loud siren, that her face was deep and withdrawn, and pale. He could see, despite how much he wished he couldn't, that blood was leaking from her ears and flowing onto the white hospital linen. He felt himself getting sick, and he had to look away, covering his eyes with a shaking hand.

Janie held onto his arm, and as they rumbled further down the road, he could hear her lightly snoring and hiccuping in a deep sleep.

The paramedics were still hard at work-- blood was still spilling over.

"It'll be fine, Crimson," came Greed's voice softly into Kimbley's ear.

The words were soothing, and he wanted to hear them... but was it _true_...? The likelihood of someone coming out of a situation like this looking as terrible as his mother was, frankly, unlikely.

Finally, the wheels halted, and they hoisted her out of the ambulance and rolled her swiftly to the glass double-doors that led to the interior of a vast white room, filled with chairs where people waited patently for their friends, family, or lovers to come out dead as a doornail or perfectly and wonderfully alive. Down the hall, into the ER wing, and into an operating room, where her fate as a living thing would be sealed.

But Kimbley, Greed, and Janie (who had tucked herself into Greed's arms) were hampered back in the waiting room, among all the others waiting for the news-- whether it was good or bad. Or... terribly unbearable.

For one in his entire existence, Kimbley was scared that a person he cared about-- even if it had been for less than a day-- was going to die. Never had he even _thought_ that this was what was to become of him. _Worrying_ over such a thing as a _loved-one_...

"C'mon, Crimson, don't tell me you're actually frightened...?" Greed whispered to him, his hand twisting up in Janie's lengthy curls, as she lay fast asleep in his lap.

"Well, maybe. I mean--"

"No, no. I like thinking that you have remorse over possible death. It makes you so... _human_," Greed cut in, his voice taking on a reflective quality seldom heard amongst all the sarcastic haughtiness.

"You're saying I'm _not_?" Kimbley shot back, a little irritated amongst his worries.

"Of course. That is... you _used_ to be inhuman. But now... _God_, you've changed."

They remained silent for a time, a few corpsy hospital-dwellers passing by like wiry ghosts on metal walkers, machines hooked to their arms clanking as they walked on.

To Kimbley, It was a graveyard, full of the potential-dead.

"Relative of Maria Kenderson...?" called out a receptionist at the window at the other side of the room.

Greed bumped Kimbley, jolting him from his drowsiness.

"Go over to the window and tell them only what you know. Bullshit _nothing_," he hissed to him, motioning toward the receptionist.

Kimbley got up slowly and staggered over to the lady at the desk. Her face sagged like an over-exaggerated piece of limp cloth, and her hair stood out as a steely purple-blue. Her eyes, though, were by far her best feature. They stood out like bright emeralds, young despite how terribly she had aged.

"Are you the son of Maria Alvira Kenderson...?" she asked, licking one of her index fingers and flipping through a stack of papers filled from top-to-bottom with information. Her voice was sweet and creamy, like a kindly grandmother's offering cookies to her loving grandchildren.

"Y--Yes," he answered, less confidently than he had hoped.

"Ah, I see. According to the papers, she has one son. You would be this Zachary, am I correct?"

"Yes."

A little more solid, this time.

"Hmm... And who are those two over there?" she questioned, motioning to Greed and sleeping Janie.

"That's my friend from school, Gree-- Gregory Glass, and my little sister, Janie," Kimbley answered, almost forgetting Greed's human name.

"Alright, well, since you only have one parent who is currently in surgery and you're the oldest in your family, I'm going to have you fill a few of these papers out about your mother. Things like... history of illness, complications, and so on. But, to me... it's all rather unnecessary, since she's already being operated on," the lady said quietly, finishing the last part with a touch of annoyance.

Kimbley took the papers from her, and was about to leave when she said to him rather silently, "I hope everything goes okay."

From this random person, who barely knew his name, his life, or anything he was remotely interested in, came sympathy. Then came an unknown emotion into his being.

"Thank... Thank you," he whispered, maybe to no one, as he took his seat back beside Greed.

It was funny... and sad.

Kindness he had never expected, or even _respected_, just falling into his lap, just like that.

And so, he went on to the extensive paper-work, most to which he had not even the slightest of inklings on how to answer them.


	9. IX

_Disclaimer: I own as much as any other GreKim yaoi fanfic writer._

**AN: Apologies for the prolonged delay. D: I've been having a hard time finding time to get on the net. :/ Plus, I had a birthday the fifth and decided to take a break.**

**Plus, I have been having a terrible lack of inspiration.**

**TERRIBLE.**

**So if I don't update again for a while, either on the basis of being lazy, not having time, or not having inspiration, I apologize. Really, I appreciate anyone who reviews, favs, or even gives this a sidelong glance. I've tried my hardest to make this good. C:**

**So, without further ado, I'll bring a conclusion to the cliffhanger. XD

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**

IX: Konagona Ni Kudaketa GLASS-Zaiku No You Na 

"I'm sorry, Zachary, but... the tumor that we located in her brain was-- fatal. O-- Our proposal is that she'd been suffering for quite some time from the extreme p-- pain and p-- pressure in her brain tissue, but never told anyone about it. If we had been informed of the difficulties earlier, it might have been p-- prevented. But... don't think it's your fault. Again... I'm... I'm very, very sorry..."

The doctor, obviously very young and inexperienced, stood there, holding the clipboard closely to his chest, adjusting and readjusting his glasses nervously (some kind of bad habit he'd have to break in the future) as he read the contents of the file to Kimbley, who had gone up after his name had been called again.

It hadn't mattered how many papers he had filled out-- all with information he hardly even _knew_-- nor would it have mattered if he had filled out anymore.

She was dead either way.

"Do you... have relatives...? That you could stay with until some kind of a will is found...?" the doctor asked, biting his lower lip furiously, failing to hide his absolute anxious-ness.

Kimbley thought a moment, attempting to reach into the catacombs of what was left of Zach's brain to recover any kind of identities of family.

Of course, memories let him down yet again.

"Well--"

"He'll stay with me, doctor," Greed's voice cut in. Kimbley turned to see that he was standing there, just as smug as could be, with Janie still asleep in his arms. "We're best friends, after all. If we could hitch a ride back to his house, he could get some of his stuff and head back to my house."

"Well, I have a lunch break in about five minutes, I supp-- pose I could give you a ride," the doctor stuttered. "So, would you please excuse me while I file my rep-- port...?"

He didn't even bother to stay for an answer; he turned around and paced down the hallway, just as fast as he could, it seemed. He walks with a sort of nervous stilt, like he had tons of trouble keeping his feet glued to the floor for any one second at a time.

"What's this deal with me staying with you?" Kimbley asked, his suspicions spiking. Whether out of fear of just plain excitement, he wasn't about to explore.

"It's the least I can do for an old friend, Crimson. Besides, we still have unfinished business to attend to," Greed replied, his smirk widening as he hoisted Janie up into his arms a little better.

Kimbley allowed himself to blush.

It felt good to be wanted-- for once.

After a while, the doctor returned, keys in hand, glasses constantly shifting, and they loaded into a broad black thing that appeared as if only the rich could afford it. He started the thing up, it rumbled to life, and once they got rolling down the road, Greed gave out directions.

They rode on without words (despite Greed's directions every-so-often), each trapped in his and her own thought processes amidst all the silence. Kimbley wondered what they were all thinking of; what kind of thoughts would that doctor have? Patients, bills, deaths, or endless sickness? What could Greed be conjuring up in that thick skull of his? Most likely only the most perverted of meanderings could be concocted in the former-Homunculus' brain. And even, what could Janie be dreaming about, if she was even dreaming at all? Probably nothing but little-girl things-- only the sweet things she's aware of in this terribly ruthless world.

For once, Kimbley found himself actually interested in other people. He recalled that he had regarded everything as null-- humans, animals, anything that contained life within, he saw as worthless. But now... Now he had changed.

And in a way, he didn't want to change back.

Eventually, they pulled into the driveway beside Greed's car, and the three got out onto the pavement.

"I-- I want you to have this. It-- It's a business-card, in case you need to call me for help-- p with anything. And I'll be sure to contact your home, Gregory, once we make the connections to draw up-- p a will. We've got the number in our phone-memory, from p-- previous visitations," the doctor sputtered, running shaking fingers through his raven-black hair. Then he repeated, "P-- Please don't hesitate to call."

And with that, once the card had been slipped between Kimbley's fingers, the doctor pulled the door shut, backed out of the driveway, and situated himself back onto the road.

Kimbley looked on the card. It was simple, with neat little blue letters scrolled across the top that read, "Kristopher Finch, M.D." and a tiny little phone-number at the bottom. Nothing fancy.

"Alrighty, Crimson, let's head on in and gather up your things. Though... I may have to help you with that. I doubt you'd know what was fashionable in this era," Greed stated as the three headed toward the door.

They entered the still house's kitchen, and Kimbley couldn't help but feel his bones shivering. He could swear a ghost was present and accounted for, but perhaps it was all just a trick of his subconscious.

It was just so... funny. He had seen thousands, maybe even millions (though that is pushing it just a tad bit) of people die-- constantly and without fail they do-- but somehow, this single death that should have meant nothing to him had struck a fear into him. Maybe it was just Zach's remaining sentimentality playing with him, or maybe it was just his new leaf turning over. Either way, he was... sad... for the first time in a _long_ time.

They went into the small hallway, and entered the door into Zach's (now Kimbley's) room. The house had the sound of death all about it, even in this little room in which Kimbley had first awoken; there was just no escaping its monotonous ring.

Greed strutted over to the bed and reclined Janie's small body onto the soft mattress, careful not to disturb her slumber, though Kimbley felt sure that it would take a hurricane and half of an earthquake to shake her from Dream-land.

"I'm curious about something, Crimson. The main reason I wanted to come here was to just check on something..." Greed whispered after Janie had snuggled herself under the covers and cooed amidst a dream of some kind.

"And what might this 'something' be that you're so curious about, hmm?" Kimbley questioned, his golden eyes following curiously as Greed sauntered his way over towards Kimbley's closet.

Greed pressed his left hand onto the door, the one that had once had the mark of the Oroborous branded into it, and Kimbley joined his side, his mind in a bit of a stupor. What the Hell was Greed getting at...?

"...This is where it happened," Greed murmured, his hand going to the knob, twisting it, and jamming the door open. Kneeling down, he threw the stacked-up cardboard boxes out of the way furiously to reveal--

"A transmutation circle...?" Kimbley gasped breathlessly, taking in the red shape before his eyes.

It was one of the most unbelievable sights, this ring placed onto the hardwood floor. The shag carpet that had once lined the interior of the closet had been scraped up and tossed aside to allow the circle to be drawn. Obviously done by an artist's hand, the thing was filled in nicely, the curves and spires all seemingly perfect. He could see Zach, in his mind's eye, taking the shoddy box-cutter to his wrist, sliding it across his skin, dipping his finger into the flowing vein, and carefully laying out the design, just as "Gregory" had instructed. He told him a marvelous thing would happen as he slipped between his fingers a shining gem that was to make everything work. "Gregory" told him, this "Gregory" he had come to revere, and he had set his hands, with their bleeding wrists, onto the inner curve of the circle, and suddenly, the pain shot through him like a knife. Nothing marvelous, nothing spectacular, just... painful. But the next moment, it was over. He waited, but then nothing. So, suddenly heavy with sleep, he stacked the boxes over top of the array to hide it until it could be cleaned later, and then he set his head onto the pillow, ready to give "Gregory" a piece of his mind the next day.

But he would never get to.

Because... he had been replaced by Kimbley.

Suddenly, Greed's hand shot out and grabbed onto Kimbley's wrists to turn them upward. Kimbley felt his eyes widening at the unexpected contact, but wouldn't allow himself to look like a total idiot. Thumbing the wounds, Greed scoffed in pity.

"I told him he needed to do this in blood, but he didn't have to go so overboard," Greed muttered, letting Kimbley's arms drop back to his sides.

"...Just as I thought... You knew he was me, so you taught him how to do all this, didn't you...?" Kimbley asked.

But Greed ignored his inquiry as his hand slid across the floor beside the circle. Standing up, he rubbed his fingers together, grinning. Watching, Kimbley could see there was a sort of magenta dust coating his fingers.

"He did just what I told him to do. What a good little boy," Greed mused, sighing, absolutely pleased with himself.

"Well, if he hadn't, I wouldn't be here now, would I?"

"Probably not. I mean, without a catalyst of some kind, it's impossible for things to pass between The Gate," Greed answered, burying his hands into his pockets and heading out the door to the kitchen.

"Wait-- what catalyst? And where are you going?" Kimbley wondered aloud, trailing after Greed's long strides. Damn, did he have long legs.

"I'll explain later. Right now, we're going to clean up that mess in the closet. Once you move in with me, real estate agents will probably be eyeing this place very carefully, and to find a 'devil-symbol' in the closet might lose them a good sale. So, let's just do them a favor and remove the evidence."

Entering the kitchen area, Greed grabbed up a rag hanging from the sink and carried it back into the room, Kimbley following obediently. Maybe it was just a rule in this messed-up game that he wasn't allowed to know what was going on.

Greed got to his knees and quickly washed up the array, placing the carpet over top as neatly as possible. The box-cutter that had been thrust into one of the smaller boxes was immediately cleaned and placed on top of the dresser in as innocent a fashion as possible, tough a box-cutter never seemed all that innocent a thing.

All the while, Kimbley stood in the doorway of his room, just... thinking, though he knew it was a dangerous thing.

Greed had done all of this... _for him_.

Just for him, he had sought out Zach's friendship, taught him how to make an array to call upon the Gate, and given him a "catalyst" of some kind that would ensure his success.

All just to see him again.

"Crimson, you okay...? You look a bit pale," Greed's voice came, concerned, beautiful amidst all the worrisome thoughts bubbling inside Kimbley's brain.

Suddenly, Kimbley felt himself falling into Greed's arms, his jaw clenched together. All those things-- all those hurtful, terrible things he had done-- he wanted to take it all back. The words he wanted to say, the ones he thought he could never say after the day of his betrayal, he said them, choked, tired, desperate:

"I'm sorry."

He felt Greed's arms tighten around his thin form, pulling him closer, as if accepting his apology without the use of silly words.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Crimson. Had I been in the same spot as you, I probably would have done the same thing--"

"You don't get it... I-- I didn't want back in the military-- I just did it to get away from you..." Kimbley replied, holding back a sob caught in his throat. He wasn't going to cry. He never had, and he never will. At least... that was what he told himself.

"What... do you mean...?" Greed asked haltingly, pausing in his embrace.

It was now or never, and Kimbley knew the truth would set him free.

"I... was so afraid of what I would become if I stayed with you..." he answered quietly, entwining his fingers into the fabric of Greed's shirt.

"...How much did you love me?" came Greed's voice almost silently.

"...Enough to want you dead," was Kimbley's solemn reply.

And then Kimbley was up in Greed's arms, moving out of the room and into the one next door.

This was it.

Greed was going to murder him, just for telling the truth.

Well, he deserved it.

He knew he had been running from his punishment for as long as he could, and that now was the time to repent. And for the first time since his soul's creation, he felt actual, pure fear. It was a raw emotion that he wanted to push away. However, the circumstances had changed him. He could no longer bury up his emotions, as he had done all the times before. He felt them, and they were more powerful than ever... making him the weak human he had never desired to imitate.

Kimbley fell back onto the bed, his mother's bed, his _dead_ mother's bed, and he cringed as Greed crept toward him.

"If you're planning to kill me, do it fast. Because I--"

"Shut up, Crimson. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it a _long_ time ago," Greed cut into Kimbley's sentence, his fingers brushing away the tears now falling down the cheeks of the former alchemist.

And then finally, they did what they had both longed to do since their eyes had first met in the fifth laboratory so long ago.


	10. X

_Disclaimer: I own only as much as any other GreKim yaoi fanfic writer. Don't like the concept of yaoi? Go on, read it. I dare you._

**AN: Sorry for the wait. Again. I've just been dancing around with ideas for this, and I'm worried that it all might run over a cliff. O: Which would suck. This thing is my baby.**

**SO. This chapter feels a little... filler-y, but it's got some fun stuff in it. Once more, it may be a time before I update again. It's Spring Break over here, so I'm planning to have maybe a little bit of fun. XD**

**Anyway, please enjoy! Reviews, favs, and other such things are always appreciated.**

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**X: Kimi O Nasu Dendouryoku Zenshin Zenrei O Kure Yo**

Golden eyes slit open.

He could see, through a small and pink-curtained window, that the sky outside had turned into a deep-pitched blue lined with tiny white pin-point stars.

For a moment, he found himself disoriented, but then he remembered coming back to his house, and the mousy doctor, and then Janie sleeping in his bed, and then finding that transmutation circle in his closet, and then--

As Kimbley sat up, slowly, he felt a tender hand brushing back the hair from his eyes.

"Morning, beautiful."

Shifting his head to the right, his eyes locked onto violet. An elbow rested on the mattress, his hand on his cheek, his other hand working through the long strands of Kimbley's obsidian hair, Greed watched Kimbley with an affectionate grin the former-alchemist had never seen passed in his direction.

Of course, realization comes at the most unfortunate of moments.

He had had sex on his mother's bed.

His _dead_ mother's bed.

With another _man_.

"Oh God, we--?"

"Come now, Kimbley, don't pretend to be a sweet little tipsy-girl pretending to be surprised at this stunning turn of events," Greed tut-tutted, twiddling a piece of Kimbley's raven-coloured hair in his fingers, his smile on the verge of cutting his face in half.

Speechless, to say the least, was all Kimbley found himself.

"And wipe that idiotic look from your face. It's most unbecoming," Greed whispered, pecking Kimbley's lips before pushing back his own hair with a nonchalant hand and pressing his feet to the floor.

"So, now that you're done with me, you're just going to leave?" Kimbley inquired, pulling the covers up around his shoulders. Greed may have already seen every inch of him, but he wasn't about to let him see any of those inches again.

"Well, I don't think it would be very brotherly of you to let your sister come in here by accident. I mean, two men lying naked together in the same bed isn't exactly the type of thing a pre-schooler should be exposed to," Greed replied, pulling on a pair of tight leather pants discarded into the floor after certain gropings had been undergone, which suddenly snapped into the clear focus of Kimbley's mind.

"Besides, I heard her get up just a second ago and go into the kitchen. We ought to go check on her, don't you agree?" Greed's eyes grazed over Kimbley, his hands unworking the sheets clamped to the former's shoulders, his eyes doing wonders to redden Kimbley's cheeks.

"I guess," Kimbley muttered, tilting his face upward to lock eyes with his now-lover.

"And, also, I'll be giving her an explanation for all that screaming you did. There's no doubt that she heard it echoing all through the house," Greed added with a mocking grin, pulling on his shirt and stepping out of the room swiftly before Kimbley could even think to reply.

And so Kimbley was left to boil with that last comment.

Allowing himself to worry no further, he hastened to pull on a shirt and some pants to look at least halfway presentable to his sister who, as he wandered out into the kitchen-area, was stirring something in a bowl.

"...So you were having a screaming-contest?" came Janie's small voice as she dipped her finger into the substance within the bowl and slurped it noisily off her finger.

"Well... Sort of. And your brother was the winner, of course. He sure does have a pair of lungs in him," Greed answered with an honest smile as he stood by Janie, chaperoning her doings cautiously.

Again, he didn't seem the type to like kids.

More like... the type to eat them. And then, perhaps if they were pointy enough, pick his teeth clean of their guts with their bones.

"Oh, Zachey! Greggy here was helping me bake some cookies, wanna help?" the little girl asked, holding out the bowl innocently, her wide blue eyes shining with all the sweetness of gingerbread and candy-canes combined.

"Listen, Janie, do you know what happened to Mommy?" Kimbley asked, kneeling down by his sister. (Well, he was ready to give this nice-guy thing a shot, no matter how ridiculous it sounded coming out of his mouth.)

Janie paused for a while, her mouth contorting into a sad smile. He could tell she was hurting, but still… she wasn't willing to show her pain. He could tell they were totally related.

"Well, Greggy told me she went to Heaven, and now she's gunna be watching us as an angel," Janie answered, her voice having that sort of innocent quality that all little kids have when they're explaining something with one-hundred-percent certainty.

Kimbley peered up to Greed, feeling a bit of relief washing over him.

Good answer.

At least he wouldn't have the heavy responsibility of explaining death to a four-year-old. Hopefully, she didn't understand the gravity of the matter, and wouldn't for some time. Hopefully, not for a very long time. Not until Kimbley had managed to adjust to all of... _this_.

"That's right, isn't it, Zachey?" her tiny voice asked, so cute and sincere in wonderment.

"Of course," Kimbley answered, pressing his lips to Janie's forehead.

"And once we're done making these cookies, you get to go to Greggy's house!" Greed chirped, resting his hands on his knees and grinning at the girl.

She giggled, of course, and went back to stirring the batter.

Kimbley noticed there was an un-washed lasagna pan in the sink. He guessed it wouldn't ever be washed again by its original owner.

He took a seat and watched the two baking. Maybe, he couldn't remember all the details of his life, but maybe at one point he had had a little sister with which he baked cookies, just like this.

...Probably not.

He never remembered being happy, not like he was now.

Being honest with himself, this little family of just Greed and Janie made him... happy, to say the least. Even with the passing of a mother he never got to know, he was... content.

The three devoured the cookies (chocolate-chip, gooey, delicious, and probably sent from the Gods themselves, if they even existed), and then Janie ran to the little covey she called "her room" to gather up her things, leaving Greed and Kimbley to their doings in the room Kimbley had come to call his own for less than a day.

"So, you have any clue what I should bring?" Kimbley asked, flipping through all the clothes stacked up in the drawers of his dresser.

"Maybe you shouldn't bring anything, and you can wear all my clothes. That way, everyone will know you're _mine_," Greed purred, pulling Kimbley backwards into his arms.

"Just because we had sex, does this mean you're going to treat me like your girlfriend?" Kimbley asked, running a finger over one of Greed's arms. He had to admit, he adored that creamy skin-tone. It was just so... _ah_.

"Please, Kimbley, you're no girl. Believe me, _I know_," Greed cooed, his hands traveling downward dangerously.

"I thought the point of all this was to get my stuff together, not to bang me senseless again..." Kimbley muttered teasingly, after which Greed released him to go back to filing through all the fabrics piled in the drawers.

Honestly, he hadn't the slightest idea what to _take_. And besides, it didn't look like he would actually be able to fit into any of Greed's clothes. He was about three sizes bigger than him in every department. (Take the fact how you will, it was the truth.)

Eventually, he settled on stuffing several shirts, several pants, a few pairs of underwear and socks into a duffel-bag.

He would ask Greed to take him shopping later, though he didn't really seem like the type to enjoy looking for the latest fashions. (Still... he had a great way of matching. Maybe Kimbley would be surprised.)

And so, with all their things gathered together, Kimbley, Janie, and Greed wandered back toward the car that would take them to their destination.

Now that Kimbley was partially conscious, he could see the car Greed had was a slick little red thing, with black racing-stripes painted on the sides to give it that "fast" look. Kimbley was pretty sure that in this universe, that would be counted as a pretty nice model.

The rag-tag troupe loaded into the car, and soon they were eating up the road, darkness settling in quite nicely.

Greed, peering down at the neon clock built into the dash, cursed under his breath and reached into his bag, lighting up yet another cigarette. (Kimbley contemplated knocking the death-stick out of his hand, but decided against it. Hey, they were Greed's lungs, he could do with them as he pleased.)

"Damn it, she's gonna kill me," he muttered, taking an angry drag and blowing smoke into the windshield.

"Who?" Kimbley asked, checking over his shoulder to see that Janie was watching the passing scenery outside with little interest in their current conversation.

"My aunt. She expects me to be home by ten every night, and if she catches me late by one minute, she'll de-gut me."

Kimbley snickered, but not so audibly as to allow Greed to hear it.

To think the all-powerful former Homunculus had worries like evil _aunts_. Oh, the way life pours on the irony.

A while later, Kimbley turned to see Janie had her head pressed up against the glass window, a line of drool running down her cheek.

So sweet it bordered on the diabetic.

"So, Kimbley, did you miss me at all?"

The question came so suddenly it knocked Kimbley off-balance.

"What... do you mean?" he asked after a time, guilt lining the edges of his voice.

"After I... well, after you betrayed me. After I died. Did you even regret it at all?" Greed asked quietly, minding Janie in the backseat.

What a terribly awkward question to ask, with a terribly awkward answer to match it.

"...Of course, Greed. I missed you. But... I was afraid to let myself miss you. I didn't want to become..."

"Weak?"

"...In love."

The two remained silent as they parked in a garage and headed inside what was to become Kimbley's new home, Janie yet again fast asleep in Greed's arms.


	11. XI

**AN: As always, I shall apologize for the long wait for this update. BUT this is an important chapter (though most of them are pretty much just whatever, XD)! I think this is the one that pretty much ties everything together with the modern time of this story and the past story in the FMA movie. Also, I feel pretty bad that I roughly based the character of Aunt Rita on my REAL aunt. But I really do love her dearly. C:**

**So, I really don't have anything additional to say, except that I am eternally grateful to everyone who reviews/favs/alerts, and so on. Hope you enjoy this chapter!**

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**XI: Moshi Mo Moshi Mo Yurusareru Nara Subete Wo Gisei Ni Shite Mo Ii Ano Egao Mou Ichido**

"And where have you been, Gregory?"

Greed flinched at the shrill voice, and Kimbley worried for a moment that he might drop Janie straight onto her skull.

"Oh, well, Auntie Rita, I was... visiting a friend, and his mother met with an... accident," Greed answered, rather honestly.

This "Auntie Rita" stood about three heads shorter than Greed, and was probably about twice the width of him horizontally. Her bleach-blond hair was kept up in a tight bun, and her piercing hawk-like eyes studied her "nephew" inquisitively, trying to figure out if he was giving a fallacy or an upright truth.

Finally, she sighed heavily, resting her hands on her hips.

"I thought I heard sirens. Is she alright?" she asked after a time, walking into another room, obviously expecting them to follow, which they did swiftly. For such a small thing, she motored like a high-speeding train.

"Well, actually, she's..." Greed paused, shifting Janie in his arms. "...She's gone."

Rita gasped, her small voice creaking.

"Oh, honey!" She grabbed onto Kimbley's hand (and now it was _his_ turn to nearly drop the luggage) and patted it reassuringly. "Oh, is there anything we could do for you? Do you need money for a funeral? Oh, darling, we could--"

"Well, actually, Auntie, I offered them to stay here for a while," Greed butted into Rita's rant with a "don't-have-a-heart-attack" tone.

"Oh, of course! Stay as long as you'd like! Oh, give me the darling little girl! I'll run her a nice soothing bath and make sure she doesn't have the frights!" Rita went on, gripping Janie into her arms and rushing to take her into a room over.

"Oh, and Gregory, please make you friend feel at home! He looks quite peaked," she called back before slamming the door to the bathroom closed.

"Ah, good old Auntie Rita. She can be a pain in the ass when you don't have an excuse for tardiness. I'm glad she's planning on moving out real soon, now that I've come of age," Greed muttered, slipping an arm around Kimbley's waist and pulling him from the kitchen into the next room over.

Indeed, this had to be Greed's dream-home. Technically, it was more like a mansion than a home. Ritzy, high-class, call it what you will, this place was fit for ten kings, lacking the tackiness of most royalty. The kitchen was spotless, and the adjacent room, which looked like some kind of dining-hall, was furnished with mahogany chairs and lavishing carpets, with a quaint little fireplace in one corner and a complete library lining two of the walls.

Greed must have caught Kimbley gawking, because he mused after a time, "Like it? Turns out our dear Greg's parents went and croaked when he was sixteen, leaving him their entire estate and fortune. My aunt, who's now in there coddling that little sister of yours, had to take care of him until his eighteenth birthday. And guess who just had a birthday a month ago May and will now be living all by his lonesome...?"

"So, you've finally gotten all you wanted," Kimbley said in return, running a hand over a finely carved armrest on a deep-navy love-seat.

"Please, Crimson, I adored all this wealth, no doubt about that... but I wasn't the least bit happy knowing a guy wearing your face wasn't fitted with your soul," Greed whispered, a hand coming up to stroke back the bangs hanging into the former Crimson Alchemist's face.

Suddenly, Kimbley remembered something.

"You said something about a... 'catalyst.' What were you talking about?"

"Ah yes! By all means, Crimson, follow," Greed replied smugly, a finger running its way over one of Kimbley's unsuspecting cheeks.

Kimbley didn't mind at all, though. He was becoming accustomed to Greed's cute little come-ons. They were... nice, to be simply put.

They walked down a long-extending hallway, leading off into several bathrooms decorated in gorgeous lavender and fuchsia wallpapers and ivory marble bath-tubs with golden shower-heads and faucets, a few bedrooms with décor fit for monarchs with flowing violet curtains and navy canopy-beds, and what appeared to be an average storage closet.

Finally, they came to the end of the hallway, and Greed twisted the knob open...

"_This_... is your room...?" Kimbley asked, less-than-astonishment touching his voice.

"Well, I hadn't been expecting your company. If I had, I would've cleaned up first and put on some music..." Greed mumbled, elbowing Kimbley lightly in the ribs.

The room was in more of a mess than Kimbley thought was possible. Clothes were piled up in three corners of the room, and the fourth was littered with large black discs of some kind. Somehow, a pair of pants had found its way to one of the ceiling-fan's blades, though Kimbley wasn't cure how in god's name it could even fly up there. The covers on the bed were twisted up and hanging into the blue-carpeted floor, which had a few rather disgusting-looking stains on it.

The place was, how to put it...?

Rather pathetic.

Then again, from what Kimbley could remember, the bar called the "Devil's Nest" wasn't exactly the most spic-and-span of all places.

"So, where's my explanation I came to receive?" Kimbley inquired, crossing his arms after he had tossed his and Janie's luggage onto the floor.

Greed offered him a seat on the bed.

"Dearest Zolf, you must find patience for these kinds of things," Greed answered, slinking over to his (cluttered) dresser and sifting through one of the drawers noisily.

He then produced a simple wooden box, nothing exactly spectacular, with a small brass lock located on the front.

"Let me tell you a story, Kimbley. Once, there was a war that went on in this universe that became better known as 'World War Two' in the history books thereafter. It concerned these terrible people, called 'Nazis', led by a man bent on creating a... 'perfect race' as he liked to call it. Well, many people followed this mad-man, and one was a woman named... _Eckheart_," Greed explained, taking a seat beside Kimbley and running his hands over the finely-polished surface of the box. "Well, many don't know what happened to her, because the records of her existence were erased from the archives of history... Well, for the exception of Gregory's grandfather."

Greed sighed, pulling a cigarette from his bag which had been slung over his shoulder the whole time. He lit up and took a deep drag, his voice continuing slowly on.

"Well, this grandfather of Gregory's was in charge of cleaning up the wreckage of her airship, which was covered with this mysterious substance and contained within its bowels these strange and glowing rocks..."

At this point, Greed produced a tiny golden-bronze key hidden beneath his shirt on a chain. He yanked it over his head, stuck the thing in the lock, and turned it until a rusty "snap" resounded within the ancient mechanics.

"...And these strange and glowing rocks were given to Gregory on his grandfather's death-bed."

"...I get it. From _our_ world... They could only be... _red stones_," Kimbley breathed as the lid of the box flew open to reveal the tiny pinkish catalyst-fragments from his old home.

"God, Kimbley, you never cease to amaze me with those smarts of yours," Greed said quietly, smirking.

Suddenly, the magenta dust on the floor of his closet made sense.

Since Gregory had these in his possession, he figured they could unlock a magic of some kind his grandfather had told him about. And so, he and his friend Frank got the crazy idea they could use a transmutation circle with the use of those little beauties. And when Greed got a hold of that body... he knew the same thing would happen if Zach did the exact same thing.

All of the pieces fit so well together.

The mystery was finally solved.

How he had gotten there, exactly _how_, was now completely clear.

He knew his memory was as good as restored with all of Greed's help in motivating it into working, and anything else was probably just trivial.

The question now was...

_What's next?_

What's to become of the former Crimson Alchemist who struck terror into thousands and forgave not the faults of even a single person...?

What, is God's name, was he supposed to do _now_...?

In a lot of ways... he missed being totally clueless.

Now that things were making sense... he wondered what was to become of him without all the mystery in his mind, ever-imposing on his every action.

Greed closed up the box, a sigh escaping his lips along with a fresh breath of curling grey smoke.

"So now you know. Everything, pretty much. Now, I think, we should get some sleep. We have to get up bright and early tomorrow, and I'm sure you'll have to put up with a whole barrage of questions," he said quietly, standing and pushing the box back into the dresser-drawer. He quickly reclaimed his seat beside Kimbley, his hand brushing lightly over his right arm and resting lovingly upon his shoulder.

"Are you... okay, Crimson...?"

"I'll be fine, I just... Now that I remember things, it's hard to cope with having to build everything from scratch," Kimbley answered, his voice wavering.

Greed's voice came almost silently.

"...Will you build it from scratch... with me...?"

Kimbley paused, his mind reaching back through time, through dimensions, back to a time when he had been so afraid to admit love to another.

He pushed that time away, far away, determined never again to deny himself the happiness that he knew was destined to come with this fateful second chance.

Lacing his fingers into Greed's, gold met amethyst and shined without worries.

"Of course, Greed. Of course I will."


	12. XII

_Disclaimer: I forgot to mention last time, but I don't own anything. Still, this is well-known, so... yeah. XD_

**AN: Again, for the thousandth time, I must apologize for the lateness of this update. D: I've just been having a hard time lately, what with school drawing to a close and teachers having mental breakdowns over this and that. In turn, I won't know when I'll be able to update again, so look for the next chapter whenever. D: **

**So, here it is, the twelfth chapter! Yet another mushy and lovey-dovey chapter, but I suppose that's the main reason you'd be reading this. XD Please enjoy!**

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**XII: Keshite REWRITE Shite Kudaranai Chou Gensou**

As Greed prepared himself for bed, the former Crimson Alchemist decided to wander about the house, examining Greed's "dream-home." (He had kindly asked Kimbley to step out of the room, claiming he was _modest_. _Really_, now? What a blatant lie.)

Besides the rat-hole of Greed's room, the place was, in a single summing word, _gorgeous_. The curtains were made of the softest of velvet, the floors were polished to a shining finish, and the walls had hanging upon them only the finest of art. But before Kimbley could get much farther into the house's many bell-and-whistle-filled catacombs, the plump little Rita came up and whispered to him, "I've tucked little Janie into bed down the hall." She pointed down yet another hall, her small pudgy finger pruned from bath-water. "Oh, you've got such a polite baby sister, Zach. It's such a shame, what happened to your mother. If you need anything, _anything_, don't hesitate to ask, honey."

Before Kimbley could think of any reply, Rita shuffled off, her small feet pitter-pattering against the hardwood floor on her way to, he surmised, her own room.

Without even thinking, he began to tip-toe toward the direction in which Rita had pointed him, carefully peaking into several doors before stumbling upon Janie's temporary room.

She stirred slightly as the light fell upon her face, and she mumbled, "Zachey... is that you...?"

Kimbley shut the door, his eyes adjusting to the darkness quickly. (He had come to realize that Zach had a set of five wonderful senses at his disposal, all of which barely had fault.) He then sauntered over to the (as he could examine, _lacy_ and _pink_) bed, setting himself down onto it.

"Yeah, it's me honey," he answered her, resting a hand in her locks of raven silk, actually becoming quite pleased at her presence. He wasn't sure what it was-- she just seemed to bring him a strange sense of... _calm_ into his heart.

"Zachey..." she muttered in an almost inaudible voice. "Do you... Do you think Heaven's pretty, Zachey?"

Of course, Kimbley being Kimbley, he had never imagined a Heaven with white billowy clouds and shimmering golden gates and a chorus of angels singing in marvelous glory. Hell, he never even imagined there was a _Hell_. He had just never thought too much about it, what with his constant desire for carnage, destruction, and, well, up-front misery of millions.

But... he wasn't about to break a little girl's heart.

"It's probably only the prettiest place you'll ever see," he reassured her, pinching Janie's cheek playfully and causing her to giggle and bring her hands up to her mouth to keep herself from being too loud.

"Do you think Mommy feels at home now?" she asked quietly. He could tell she was hurting, and he knew she was hiding the fact that she was crying, but he knew that all he had to do was reassure her that everything was going to be okay. The fact was… he needed to say it to make _himself_ feel better.

"Well, of course. It _is_ Heaven, after all," he answered her meek question confidently, feeling, for once, an un-smug smile coming to his face while his heart was warmed by her glowing deep-ocean eyes.

She wiped away her tears, as if understanding that all was going to be… okay.

"Well, Zachey, I'm gunna go to sleep now. Auntie says she's gonna teach me how to sew pretty things tomorrow," Janie said, pulling the covers up to her chin with her tiny little hands and yawning.

"Alright. You get lots of sleep, okay?" Kimbley whispered, to which Janie didn't reply.

Already fast asleep.

As if on impulse, he bent his neck downward and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before exiting the room silently and returning down the other hall to see if Greed was finished changing.

If anything had been learned by this whole second chance, it was that he was through with playing the villain.

For a change, he was going to be the "good guy."

Well, not the kind that was all sunshine and rainbows, of course.

He still planned on being an asshole every now and again, no matter the consequences.

But... not as big as he had been before.

Twisting the knob to Greed's room and pulling open the door, Kimbley was suddenly and forcefully lifted upward and plopped back onto the bed with a comical "sproing" of the mattress. The door flew closed, and he heard the turn of what sounded like a key of some kind.

Trying not to scream, he whisper-hissed, "What the Hell are you--" but merely managed to get himself cut off by a passionate pair of lips colliding into his own, a pair of hungry hands binding themselves around his waist, and speedy hips sliding in-between his own.

Kimbley managed to writhe away, his breaths coming in short gasps as his eyes locked onto Greed's own violet optics.

"What the _Hell_... are you doing?" Kimbley finished, preparing himself to be silenced again.

Thankfully, Greed had the courtesy to allow him a few words.

"Was my assumption that we were going to have our ways with one another on a daily basis wrong...?" Greed asked fake-innocently (again, he was quite the terrible actor), raising an eyebrow sweetly. (Not to sound too awfully terrible, but Greed needed to watch it with those tweezers.)

Kimbley rolled his eyes, deciding instead to wrap his arms around Greed's neck over bitching at him about nearly scaring the ghost out of him.

"Well... perhaps _not_," he replied, grinning mischievously and raising one of his own eyebrows (which, thankfully, Zach hadn't plucked all to Hell before his arrival).

But of course, he was planning to tease first. Despite this whole "turning over a new leaf" thing, he still had the slight personality quirk to never get straight to it, no matter how much begging ensued. (Good or bad, begging was begging, and the once-mass-murdering alchemist _loved_ it.)

Eventually, though, he had to give in to Greed's charm (which, surprisingly, _was_ charming and extremely convincing) and give him what he wanted.

To give a short version, skimping on many of the details, Greed managed to please all while being gentle on Kimbley's still-nearly-virgin body and soul. (Well of course Kimbley was a virgin. He was always much too busy killing things to get wrapped up in such details as having _sex_.)

Kimbley moaned one last time, attempting to catch his breath all while trying to keep quiet his sighs and pants. He worried that because of the extreme size and emptiness of the house that things might echo, and dear Auntie Rita might be the second to die that day if she saw her pierced-up nephew having his way with his best friend.

Not to mention the scars that Janie would carry if she saw the goings-on.

"Shush, Crimson, you're going to wake up the whole neighborhood," Greed teased, his fingers moving to brush Kimbley's cheek adoringly.

"Shut up..." Kimbley whispered, grinning, his head resting into Greed's chest as his eyes began to fill with sleep.

"Do we need to get some clothes on...?" he asked after a time, his hands sliding over Greed's bare skin. Smooth, radiant, beautiful.

"Nah. I've got the door locked, and Auntie hardly ever bothers to wake up until ten or so," the once-Homunculus answered, running a hand through Kimbley's hair.

Suddenly, Kimbley felt... guilty.

This wasn't Greed's skin... It wasn't Kimbley's hair... It was Gregory's skin, and Zach's hair.

They had taken their places...

If he could remember correctly, the basis of alchemy was "Equivalent Exchange."

And this, he realized, didn't feel very equivalent.

"Greed, do you think... Do you think it's wrong for us to be here?" he asked, suddenly feeling like _he_ was the four-year-old in need of reassurance.

Placing a hand onto Kimbley's warm cheek, Greed replied, "I don't think so, Crimson. I'm pretty sure-- better yet, I _know_ we're supposed to be here. Sometimes, we get something for nothing, gain without giving. Maybe we were just lucky enough to get that hand dealt to us. And think about it, Crimson. You lost your _mom_. Well, at least, Zach's mom. And I know you alchemists are all for this equivalency stuff, but… don't you think that's loss enough? I should think so."

Kimbley felt himself smiling at Greed's words, his face burying back into his chest.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, his fingers grabbing hold of Greed's side to pull them closer together.

"What, you're _still_ worried I'm mad at you...?" Greed laughed subtly, placing his thumb beneath Kimbley's chin to connect eyes with him.

"I'm pretty sure you should be in the middle of hating me by now."

"I could never hate you, Crimson. No matter how much you may want me to, I _never_ can," Greed reassured, resting his hand on the back of Kimbley's head to bury his face back into his chest.

Kimbley kept telling himself that everything was perfect, and that nothing could go wrong, as his eyes drifted closed and his body un-tensed in the sanctuary of Greed's arms.


	13. XIII

_Disclaimer: Ownership: none. Capiche? XD_

**AN: So, as the summer rolls around, I find that I need a hiatus. For all of you reading, I apologize if you actually like this. XD But I need a break. Honestly, I need to get a lot of this together and make sure it ties together right--re-vamping is in order. Enjoy a summer free of me! C: But please, whatever you do, don't forget this story. I have worked extra hard to make it special. :3**

**So, enjoy chapter thirteen, and I hope to see you once summer is over! --heart--**

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**XIII: Kimi No Omokage Wo Kono Mune Ni Kizandekure **

Before long, he felt a hand shaking him awake. It had just seemed like his upper eyelid had fallen onto his lower one before he was roughly brought back into reality.

Well, at least it had been a dreamless night.

He opened his eyes to see Greed looming over him, fully dressed, violet eyes piercing into him.

"Morning, glory," he said simply, grinning his sharpened teeth down at him.

"We have to go back to that school today, don't we...?" Kimbley half-moaned, half-slurred, still in need of at least three more hours of sleep.

"Well, at least it's a Friday. We get off Saturdays and Sundays to do as we please. But for now..."

Suddenly, the sheets, comforter, and whatever clothes had been piled onto the bed were pried off, leaving Kimbley curled up into a little shivering and naked ball.

And so began the second day of the rest of Kimbley's life.

"I don't want to _go_," he whined quietly, pulling the pillow over his face, trying desperately to block out the light streaming through the window thrust open by Greed.

"Ah, what a perfect day! The grass is green, the sun is up, and not a cloud in the sky!"

Not only was Greed the worst chain-smoker with which Kimbley had ever come into contact (well, besides this one blond guy he _vaguely_ recalled...), but he was also a nut-cake morning-person.

Still, Kimbley would not be swayed out of sleep, no matter _how_ fabulous the day was.

"_I'm not going_," he muttered under the pillow in a muffled voice.

Then he felt an enticing finger trailing over the bones in his spine, and a silky voice saying, "You mean you don't want to show off to everyone your new _ring_...?"

Suddenly, the former-alchemist jolted up, his eyes wide.

"_What_," he stated, not questioned, his eyebrow raised.

Greed laughed a laugh which made Kimbley's insides melt. (At this point, he had to admit, he had come to _adore_ Greed, even in his most annoying quirks.)

"_A ring, _Crimson," the older boy whispered, fumbling in his bag and producing a small cardboard box and prying open the lid to reveal a sterling-silver band upon which was a deep scarlet stone which, after Kimbley stared at it for a while, he realized was one of the red stones.

"You're giving this to me...?" Kimbley asked quietly, his voice shaking.

"Well, why not...? I mean, we _are_ lovers after all, right?" Greed grinned, taking the younger boy's left hand into his own larger one and slipping onto the ring finger the stunning band. It fit perfectly... just as if it was made _perfectly_ for him.

It was all too much at once.

Becoming someone's lover, receiving a gift of such beauty and sentimentality, being... _loved_... It was all one frightening experience right after the other.

"I love you, Kimbley."

Those words were truly the killer.

And then the cold, heartless, ruthless murderer became overwhelmed with emotion.

He fell into Greed's arms, tears streaking his face.

He felt like such a fool.

He had had a chance, once before, to forge something so beautiful with Greed. But he had been afraid. He could have had all this the first time around, but he had been blinded by the fear of losing himself.

But... Greed was so perfect to him.

It had taken him this second life to realize that.

These tears that fell from him... They were tears of joy.

"I... I love--"

"No. Don't say it until you know you mean it, because I know I've meant it for as long as I can remember," Greed whispered to him, his fingers weaving through strands of hair that flowed into Kimbley's eyes.

"...Alright," the former-alchemist sighed quietly, playing with the ring idly on his finger.

It was truly gorgeous, in more ways than one.

"Now get a quick shower and get dressed. I got you up a little earlier, so you'll have plenty of time," said Greed, pushing away Kimbley a little to thumb his tears away fondly. He pecked his lips, and smiled sweetly, the love glowing deep inside those amethyst eyes of his.

And then the once-Homunculus got off the bed and retreated out of the room, after which Kimbley felt his heart skipping beats.

He had wanted to tell Greed he loved him, oh-so long ago, but he felt himself in agreement with the other.

The moment had to be right,_ absolutely_ right, before he let the words be spoken.

Retrieving clothes from his luggage (a long-sleeved hooded shirt with the initials "A.K-F.G." and a pair of hip-hugging jeans, along with underwear and socks, of course), he tip-toed down the hallway to one of the bathrooms he had seen the first time he had passed through. It was on of the smaller bathrooms, with a crystalline-glass shower and plain beige marble sinks lined with fancy perfumes and littered with make-up supplies.

Quickly, he jumped into the shower after laying his attire on the edge of the sink and slamming the door shut behind him, toggling the faucet until the water was at a nice moderate temperature.

At least the water here was nice...

He sighed, letting the water run over him, cleansing him, stripping away not only the dirt, but his worries, his cares. Sure, he was about to load himself into Greed's car and drive back to that damn place of "learning," but here, he felt he could not be touched by pain or strife. Peace settled in so wonderfully...

There came a knock at the door, and Kimbley slung his head to the left towards the door, his wet hair flying across his face, and gruffly said, "_What._"

"I'm coming in."

It was Greed, of course, and Kimbley, with rolling eyes, answered, "_Fine._"

Well, they may be "lovers" at this point, but it gave him no right to be rude.

Greed creaked the door open, shuffling inside. To Kimbley, he was nothing but a blur in front of the crystalline glass partition that separated the shower from the rest of the bathroom.

"What did you want?" Kimbley asked, slightly annoyed, but trying not to make it too awfully obvious.

"I remember something like this happening once before, back when we once walked in our original bodies," Greed mused, resting his back on the glass and sliding down. "I barged in when you were showering, and in the end I managed to cut your hair."

Kimbley sighed, remembering. It was all so funny and sad at the same time.

Pressing his shoulders to the partition, Kimbley slid down as well, his back to Greed, only separated by less than a single inch of glass.

"I told you there was one person who was most precious to me, and it seemed as if you just couldn't figure who I was talking about," Greed said loud enough over the raining of the water, which drenched the boy sitting on the shower-floor.

"You were talking about me, weren't you?" Kimbley asked, hesitating, trying to lock away the butterflies trying to fly from his ribcage.

Greed stood up, laughing quietly. Kimbley could hear him lighting up yet another cigarette and dragging the smoke into his lungs hungrily.

The former-alchemist shut off the water, but chose to stay seated a little longer.

Greed answered, but quietly and slowly, like trying to write a difficult piece of poetry.

"Call it love at first sight, I'm a sucker for romance. Even then, I believed in true love. When I had been a human, well, prior to being _this_ human, of course, I fell in love with Dante thinking she would love me back. But... I only turned into a transmutation-experiment. Even then, once I had become 'soulless,' it was hard to escape those feelings I had for her. And then..."

Suddenly, the retractable shower-door flew back and Kimbley tumbled onto his back (like, well, a completely uncoordinated idiot), his eyes catching amethyst leaning close to his own, his body feeling the towering figure looming over top of him.

"Then I met you, and I was sure it was _love_."

"And then I ran away like the scared dog I was," Kimbley added, smirking at his own pathetic past.

Greed sighed, standing back up and blowing smoke into the air.

"Get dressed, we need to get going in five minutes."

Greed left without another word, slamming the door behind him.

Breath escaped Kimbley's loose lips, and he could still taste the nicotine from Greed's own breath from all the times he had kissed him last night.

"And... you'll never know how _sorry_ I am," he whispered, trying in vain not to cry as his eyes took in the sight of the ring still on his finger, glinting gorgeously in the white light.


	14. XIV

_Disclaimer: Ownership None._

**AN: Well... it's been quite some time since I've updated this. And for that, I apologize. And, with my summer being full of summer-y things and this school-year being one of my most intimidating yet, I'm not sure how much more I'll be able to work on this. Plus, and I don't mean to sound like a whiny bitch (...XD), but I was really hoping to have more reviews than this at this point. BUT, OH WELL! I'm pretty sure I still have people willing to read this, and so it will go on as long as it... does. Wow, that sentence... failed. XD So, without further ado, enjoy!**

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**XIV: Sonzai No Shoumei Ga Ta Ni Nai Kara**

The car-ride remained uneventful (well, except for Greed's exemplary performance in choking down around twenty cigarettes in the span of thirty minutes), just as Kimbley had predicted, what with Greed's sudden silent-treatment. But still, he didn't feel much like talking.

They made it to school unscathed, and the ex-Homunculus didn't even give him a word as he parked and stalked out of the car towards the glass doors.

Kimbley bit his tongue and chose not to complain.

At least he wasn't doing that lovey-dovey doting thing with him.

...On second thought, as the door slammed shut ad nearly broke his nose off, it _might_ have been a _little_ nicer.

He pushed open the door just as Greed disappeared around the corner and suddenly someone was latching onto his arm, crying and wailing on in a grief-stricken voice, "Oh Zach!! I read about it in the paper this morning, in the obituaries, about your mom! Oh, Zach, is everything okay?!"

Suddenly, it felt just like a repeat of the first time he talked with Aunt Rita. Kimbley had never had anyone for whom to show concern. It was awkward to have someone so broken up all over him.

"Yeah, Mary, I'm fine. Look, don't worry about me, I'm fine," he answered, fake-smiling.

He hoped he was a much better actor than Greed.

But Mary kept on, leading him over to where Lawrence and Dean were already seated, the former looking frankly pissed at the world and the latter copying yet another page of "Calc." that he had neglected to finish the previous night.

"Well, I know about how your dad is, well, you know, gone too, and I'm just gonna let you know right here that if you need any place to stay--"

"Actually, I'm staying with someone," Kimbley answered, taking a seat by Dean, who barely even bothered to acknowledge his existence.

"Oh, so, who's the lucky gal, eh?" Lawrence asked, trying to poke himself into the conversation.

_Gal._

Who the Hell used _that_ term anymore? I mean, even when it was popular, Kimbley ever bothered to use it.

"If by 'lucky' you mean 'doting' and by 'gal' you mean 'oaf,' I'm stuck with Gree-- ehm,_ Gregory Glass_."

Mary stopped moving, almost as if she were shot in the brain. Hell, she even stopped breathing and blinking there for a moment from the trauma.

"_What_," came Dean's voice slowly, the air escaping the cracks in his teeth like the wind seeping from a balloon.

For a moment, Kimbley was sure he was about to be ejected from the group when suddenly an arm wrapped itself around his neck in a chokehold-type-grip.

"That's right, kiddies. He's with _me_ now. See the ring?"

His left hand was grappled and jammed into place for all the world to see.

Kimbley chanced to look up to see Greed, grinning, proudly showing off to the whole entire school that they were-- dare he say it?-- _dating_. (He doubted many would care, but it was still _there in plain sight._)He kind of wished he was still giving him the cold-shoulder over this loving-adoring-disposition. But now...

Place a shiver here.

Whatever reputation Zach may have had was now burned to a charred crisp. Better yet, it was already in tiny ashes scattered to the winds.

Of course, the three were stunned into awkward silence. Mary just sort of sat there, her eyes bulging out of her skull in an almost impossible fashion. Dean's pencil snapped in half. Lawrence remained stone-silent and un-moving like a painting.

Mary prepared to open her mouth to speak, but the bell cut off her voice, and as it subsided, Greed prevented her from talking by cutting in with, "May I escort you to your class, honey?" with a bow and a sugar-coated smile that was capable of injecting Kimbley with a bit of diabetes.

Lawrence and Dean deserted them immediately, and Mary followed after Dean hesitantly.

"I can't _believe_ you," Kimbley murmured, turning his blazing golden eyes onto Greed, who simply showed off his sharpened-teeth.

"Well, I have to mark you as my territory _somehow_," Greed simply put, placing an arm around Kimbley's shoulders.

He sort of hoped they'd go separate ways, but then he remembered they had the first class together.

Damn fate.

Again.

Neither bothered to stop by their lockers on the way to the class, and neither had any books to take with them into the classroom. Although Greed had ceased in keeping his arm around Kimbley's shoulders, Lawrence still gave them dirty looks as they passed.

Kimbley realized suddenly that dating another man _wasn't_ such a good idea, especially when it's a taboo-kinda-thing.

Kimbley took his seat, with Greed in the one behind his, and the next bell rang, as if on cue. The teacher entered, this time wearing tight plaid pants and a button-up forest green top.

Both of which were, yet again, _much_ too small for her.

The cockroach-killers were still on her feet.

"Alright, class, I have your papers from yesterday. When I call your name, please come up and retrieve them," she announced, her grade-book held tightly by her pudgy fingers as she took her seat behind her desk.

"Lawrence Oxford?"

The giant red-head paced to the desk, passing by Kimbley's desk with a death-glare. He retrieved his paper, and returned to his desk with yet another death-glare.

"Zachary Kenderson?"

Kimbley got up from his seat, and as he reached out for his paper, the teacher said quietly, "I noticed you have no book on your desk, Mr. Kenderson. Did you forget it?"

"Uhm, well…"

Suddenly, he remembered the bag he had carried all his stuff in was left in the gym locker-room after his little faint.

"Mr. Kenderson, it's just fine. I heard about what happened to your mother, and I know it must be very stressful, especially after the passing of your father a year ago. Today, you can just run errands for me, if you like."

_Saved!_ It was quite unexpected of course, but very convenient. He would have to thank his mother for dying.

He felt guilty for thinking that, of course, but told himself he needed a good laugh.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bertram," he whispered to her, remembering Greed had called her that on the previous day.

At least he had improving memory-skills on his side.

He took his seat back in front of Greed to see there was a small rectangular scrap of paper sitting there neatly on his desk. Unfolding it gently, he could see placed within was a giant and bold three-letter word in a deep blue colour:

"FAG."

The word didn't strike him at all, so he didn't mind.

Still, it was… odd.

He shrugged it off, though, and the rest of the class remained, for the most part, dull. Mrs. Bertram didn't even bother him for those errands she talked about. The only thing accompanying his sifting thoughts was the loud screeching of the ear-phones Greed had placed into his ears.

The bell rang once more, and Kimbley began to worry as the students poured out of the classroom, Lawrence ensuring he bumped heartily into him with a rude and jarring force. He didn't know where to go (it was all Greed's fault, what with him insisting on pulling him out of class for a little chit-chat), and was about to try to figure it out when he felt a hand tugging him.

"C'mon, _Zach_, time to go to second block."

Kimbley's heart sank to the lowest and deepest pit.

_Archer._


	15. XV

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Except myself. But then again, that's in question, as well._

**AN: Ah, an update! Sorry for the wait, yet again, but I fear I'm starting to lose steam on this. D: However, I'll keep adding chapters as long as I can. So to all who are reviewing, faving, and alerting, thanks a lot! I wouldn't be going on without you guys. C:**

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**XV: Omoide No Kakera Wo Atsumeteru**

"Where the Hell are you taking me?" Kimbley demanded, wondering for a moment if he could snap Archer's twig-like arm in half.

"Like I told you. Second block, Drama class," Archer answered him coolly, still dragging him through the hallway like a dog on a leash. Only the leash was a thin, stick-arm.

Kimbley, of course, wasn't buying it.

That "I-might-rape-you-later" look that Archer had given him before he blacked out was, Kimbley feared, coming to fruition.

But to his relief, he was pulled into a large and dark enclosed auditorium scattered with students instead of a small broom-closet in which he would be taken advantage of.

"Ah, Mr. Kenderson! I'm glad you could join us today," announced a heavy man about a head taller than Kimbley with square-rimmed glasses. "Might you enlighten me as to your whereabouts yesterday?"

Kimbley bit his lip, trying to think, but Archer answered for him.

"He was sick, sir. Something he had for breakfast wasn't sitting quite right with him."

"Ah, well, I hope you're feeling better today. Please, Mr. Kenderson and Mr. Archer, take your seats."

Archer led Kimbley down the runway to one of the many rows of comfy, cushy chairs. They made it to the second row, and Archer pushed Kimbley into the second seat. The pale boy claimed the first.

"Sticking up for me?" Kimbley whisper-hissed, raising his eyebrow.

"Well, I always did before, why stop now?" Archer returned, smiling in a fashion that came off as somewhat seductive.

"Listen _you_, I--"

"Alright, class, please settle," the teacher announced, walking up the stairs to the main stage and waving his hands for attention. Everyone began to quiet down and claim his or her seats as he continued. "Now, as you are all aware, graduation is coming up next week--"

Bursts of applause filled the room, and he waved his hands for silence once more.

"Ahem, graduation is next week, and I know a lot of you are antsy. But believe me, we _will_ get this play over with before..."

Then the teacher began to ramble indistinctly, about the amazing stature of the students, and how hard the teachers worked, and so-on.

Suddenly, Kimbley felt breath on his ear.

"Shall we finish here what we started yesterday in the locker-room...?" came Archer's whispering voice, a pale and slender hand pressing itself into the interior of Kimbley's thigh.

"Don't even _think_ that I would let you," Kimbley hissed back.

This was it.

He was going to be raped, right here, right now. And since the auditorium was so damn dark, no one would see it to stop it.

He. Was. _Doomed_.

He felt Archer's lips grazing his neck, and his hand grasping at an extremely sensitive area of Kimbley's inner-thigh. All Kimbley could do was close his eyes, preparing for the worst possible scenario...

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Waters, I was practicing bulimia in the girls' restroom."

Kimbley's eyes snapped open, and Archer's lips snapped away from his neck and his hand from his thigh, almost as if they were afraid of the voice echoing throughout the high-vaulted ceilings.

Oh, what _luck_.

"_Mr. Glass_, _please_ refrain from interrupting my class. Just take your seat and I may commence finishing my speech," the teacher, Mr. Waters, said all while trying to hide his complete and utter exasperation.

Greed strutted down the aisle, all the girls murmuring amongst themselves about how hot he was and all the guys muttering about how those piercings made him look so gay. (Kimbley still wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, as well as he wasn't sure about the word "fag." Still, he felt the two words coincided somehow.)

Finally, Greed was right beside Kimbley, whispering to Archer, "Scoot, honey, you need to make room for my dearest Crimson's lover."

Sighing, Archer agreed to move, Kimbley following suit, to make room for the pierced-up ex-sin.

"Alright, without further interruptions..." (Insert an evil glare directed toward Greed...) "...We _will_ be performing _'Guy-liner'_ the day before graduation, written by Mr. Glass."

Grumbles and moans came from the students as Mr. Waters called up two of them to pass out the scripts from the stacks hidden behind the curtains.

Kimbley felt himself being nudged in the ribs. Looking over, he could see Greed smirking in all his sharp-toothed glory, proud at getting recognition for his, what Kimbley predicted would be, _frightening_ work of art.

"Now, the parts are going to be a bit... different, now that we've gotten permission from the state to do a realistic telling of the story. Miss Laurie Lemon will now be playing one of the sisters instead of Noah, and the part of Noah will be played by... Mr. Kenderson."

Suddenly, sparks rose up from the crowd, and the buzz became almost unbearable before Mr. Waters hushed them all with a hand again.

Kimbley sank down in his seat.

He had the sinking suspicion that this "Noah" person was definitely supposed to be played by someone with a bit more... femininity, and definitely not someone with a lot of masculinity.

"Quiet, quiet, now you must remember, this is supposed to be a realistic telling, and so a man must play the part of Noah."

A script was dropped into Kimbley's lap, after which he opened it up. There, in bold lettering, was the name "Zachary Kenderson," followed by a series of dots, and then "Noah." Another series of dots, followed by "Leading man in drag."

On second thought, _now_ Zach's reputation was dismantled.

Probably permanently.

"Also, at the request of the writer, Mr. Glass will now be playing the part of Simon whereas Frank Archer will now be playing the part of his brother, Anthony."

Kimbley looked down through the list shortly after the teacher finished.

"Gregory Glass"..."Simon"..."Noah's love-interest."

Of course it would happen like that.

Averting his eyes from the script, Kimbley could see Greed had crossed his legs up over the next seat up, a perfect little evil-smile painted on his lips.

"Only you would sink so low," came Archer's voice on Kimbley's other side.

"Well, I have to make sure everyone gets the message. He. Is. _Mine_," Greed whispered over to Archer, his amethyst eyes crushing Archer's into submission.

"Now, get into groups and practice your lines. We'll be having dress-rehearsal next Wednesday, and then Thursday will be the real thing. I must apologize for the short notice, but Mr. Glass had some difficulties getting the script done and I had to be out for several weeks taking care of my sick grandmother. So please, if you will, try to get together as much as you can to go over your lines. You'll have the rest of class to practice."

And with that, the teacher was finished, and he went off to do... whatever teachers did in their spare time.

So, this is what the infamous Crimson Alchemist was to be reduced to.

...Playing a man in a dress.

Greed must have caught the distressed look in Kimbley golden eyes, because he eased a comforting arm around him and said something that was, in his mind, consoling:

"Well, at least you get to be my girlfriend."


	16. XVI

_Disclaimner: I own nothing. D: And that makes me le sad._

**AN: Once more, thanks to everyone for all the reviews and watches and so on! It's always appreciated. C: Surprisingly, I have nothing to add. XD Enjoy!**

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**XVI: Tsukan Da Hazu No Boku No Mirai Wa…**

The bell rang finally, mercifully, after Kimbley tried in vain to remember the lines he would have to recite less than a week from then. ("Oh, Simon, how are we to be?" Crappy dialogue like that was a real stomach-turner. Still, it was just a school play, and as being such, would automatically lack the grace and decency of a _good_ play. Also, throwing in the fact that _Greed_ had written at least half of it, it was sure to be a bomb.) He was sure it was to be the nightmare week from Hell, but he attempted to push his worries away for the time being. Right now, he had bigger problems, like being socially shunned.

Why he was so worried about being a social outcast...? Actually, he wasn't quite sure about that. Either way, it was an obstacle he'd have to face, despite how he longed for it to not be so.

Trying to avoid the daggers being thrown from the eyes of his friends, he took his place beside Mary and let his head thump the table.

He was too tired to be dealing with the stresses of teen-life.

He had already gone through it once.

Obviously, God... or whatever... had a real _God_-complex.

"So, I hear you're to be putting on a dress and parading about in front of the school, eh?" came Benton's shrill voice from the end of the table. Today he had decided to amuse himself by mixing gravy into his strawberry sauce.

"That's right, and he'll be playing none other than the main role. He's the best of the best, is he not, my friends?"

Kimbley could just _strangle_ Greed at this point in time.

Why was it that he always showed up at the most inconvenient of times...?

It was as if he had some kinda... sixth-sense.

They all grew quiet as Greed settled himself beside Kimbley, his lip-rings flashing in the sickly white-light.

"What's the matter...? Am I not welcome?" Greed asked, pretend-hurt spreading over his face as he put a loving arm around Kimbley's shoulders. At other times, it would prove to be a soothing gesture, but at a time like this...

Dean muttered something, to which Greed laughed despite whether he even heard it or not. Something along the lines of "changing into a monster," or so Kimbley's ears picked up. Really, the line held irony in more than one way. It was worthy of a chuckle.

"Now guys, we can all get along, I'm sure."

But everyone seemed to migrate away shortly afterwards, leaving just Kimbley, Greed, and, surprisingly, Mary.

For a moment, Kimbley was going to think of some smart-ass remark to get her to leave. Hell, why should she stay when they're all gone? He didn't want to get his hopes up by thinking someone actually _liked_ him.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut into him.

"I know what they're sayin' about you, but I'm not willing to let it bother me. We've been friends since forever, and I'm not about to let a little thing like this get in the way of that."

Kimbley felt himself stopping for a moment.

Someone was actually... friends with him...?

Someone was willing to... stand by him?

He had never done that for anyone, and seeing it all happen like this was, to say the least, a confusing twist of events.

But... he liked having a friend.

Before he could dignify her with a reply of some kind, she stood slowly and muttered, "I'm gonna try and get those guys' heads straight. I'll leave you two for a bit."

And so she left.

...Leaving Kimbley with Greed.

"Ah, so I see you like this whole 'giving-relationships-a-go' thing. I can tell," Greed mused, resting his chin on Kimbley's shoulder and grinning slyly like he had the secret to unlocking the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

"I guess so. And I guess I'm going to be stuck playing this little part of yours in this sick production you've made."

"Honestly, dear Kimbley, I had no idea you would be here after I had my writer's block and that you'd arrive just as I requested that the part be played by a specifically-built male who happens to resemble you," Greed went into explaining, ironically giving away all the details by pretending to play an innocent, which he was, of course, horrible at doing.

For a moment, Kimbley was worried.

Greed was such a _terrible_ actor.

How was he going to pull off this whole play...?

"Let me guess: This is all a scheme to somehow mark me as your own, am I right...?" Kimbley asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, dearest Zolf, you're a human, I'd think you'd know what I'm doing. It's not enough to have something, now, is it?" Greed questioned, now pulling his chin away to play nimbly with Kimbley's fingers. Kimbley couldn't help but feel so marvelous, what with Greed so constantly fascinated by his every nook and cranny and crevasse.

"No, of course not. The fun of having something is showing it off, to all the people you know, and to complete strangers as well," Greed continued, pressing his lips to each of Kimbley's fingertips. A few students watched, a bit engrossed, and some just _grossed_, but no one complained out loud.

"...And this is all just a way of showing me off, like an ornament, right...?" Kimbley asked, becoming slightly irritated. He was getting tired of this game Greed was playing with him.

Greed allowed his face to hover close to whisper, "I've always wanted to show you off as _mine_. Back in our other lives, in the Devil's Nest, I couldn't allow my feelings to show. I couldn't let anyone know how much I truly wanted you, how much I truly..." he paused thinking of the words. "...loved you. Don't take the one moment in which I get to show everyone that you are mine, without shame and without fear. Not as an ornament, as you put it, but as… as a lover. As… as the one person who I really and truly love."

And Kimbley let himself smile.

"So, it's all just a scam to tell everyone I'm yours, right?"

Greed grinned, drawing away and sighing.

"Pretty much."

Though he still was frightened of letting it show, he knew that deep inside his love for Greed glowed brighter than any crimson stone set into sterling.

Playing idly with his ring, and just before the bell sounded, he said, "You know I'm yours, Greed."

Greed responded with, "I love you."

Kimbley didn't have enough time to say it in return, and it was as if Greed didn't expect him to say it back, for he turned and left him sitting alone.


	17. XVII

_Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, or Greed, or Kimbley, or Archer. Sadly. But it's not like BONES necessarily DID anything super-awesome with 'em, amirite? XD_

**AN: So, many distractions have been flooding my life recently. I'm sure you're not too awfully interested, but I need to bitch/rant SOMEWHERE. I'm going to be having an EEG 24 hours from now, and during the time in-between, I will be DENIED. SLEEP. And denying me sleep is like denying Greed his Kimbley. It's just... IMMORAL. WRONG. Totally and horribly... DISGUSTING. Also, my internet's been crapping out. A LOT. And so I latch onto whatever opportunities there are for it to freakin' WORK. So I took advantage of my sleep-deprived HELL to try during a time when I'm sure the traffic's slow.**

**So. Without further ado, I'll kindly shut the Hell up and let you good people enjoy some more GreKim. ^_^**

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**XVII: Eien Ni Kaketa Mama Mikansei**

The third class of the day was boring.

Kimbley easily conquered all of the equations presented to him, despite the fact that Dean kept giving him dirty looks. The teacher announced that they would be having a test Monday, and then the rest of class would be free-time until graduation.

Then fourth block.

Insert a shudder here.

He had been lucky enough to have Greed save his ass back in the auditorium, but he knew he wouldn't be lucky enough this time around.

Dillon avoided him like poison, and Archer was already awaiting him in the entrance to the gym.

"Well, Crimson Alchemist, fancy meeting you here," the pale-faced former-colonel murmured once Kimbley was close enough and out of ear-shot of the other students.

"Don't even _think_ about touching me."

Kimbley wasn't even sure _why_ he hated Archer so much so suddenly. He recalled that they had been friends at one point, but still...

Archer had been partially responsible for Greed's death, even though Kimbley _had_ been the one foolish enough to fall for his charms.

Well, he would be sure not to fall for it a _second_ time.

"Dearest Kimbley, I wouldn't even consider it. Besides, Greed has made it quite clear he prefers to keep you all to himself," Archer replied, trailing closely behind Kimbley as they entered the gym and the locker-room.

Not even dignifying that remark with a response, the former alchemist marched to his locker and, taking notice of his books randomly forgotten there after his moment of concussion, managed to rip the locker open to get to his clothes. Funny, his books were here, and his gym clothes were here…

Hadn't he passed out while wearing his clothes…?

The thought of being changed by another person made him go into a near-gagging state.

"Manage to open your locker by yourself…?"

Kimbley bit his lip, already over the point of complete annoyance. Still, he chose to ignore the pale-faced former-colonel to retrieve his clothes and quickly change, before anyone else left. Perhaps one of his worst fears was to be stuck again, alone, with Archer. God only knew what might happen.

Pulling his shirt over his head, he disregarded the fact that Archer was eyeing him hungrily. Really, it was quite distracting.

Unfortunately, Kimbley had not been fast enough in changing. All the other boys had abandoned him, yet again, and he was left with no one but the white-faced Devil himself (well, taking into consideration that the Devil did in fact _exist_ and have as pasty a face as that).

A cold hand slipped itself around Kimbley's waist from behind, and the once-alchemist whirled around to meet eye-to-eye with silver-blue optics.

"You? Greed's? I don't think so," was Archer's single statement, followed by a poisonous smile.

Kimbley simply shrugged. Hell, he was still the Crimson Alchemist, no matter what skin he had settled into. He wasn't about to be bested by twig-boy here.

"You just failed to get there first," came Kimbley's nonchalant response, to which Archer shoved him up against the lockers. A piece of metal clawed into his back, but he didn't allow himself to flinch, not even when he felt blood running down his back.

"Don't bullshit me, Crimson Alchemist. You know as well as I that _I_ was the one who rescued you from that abomination, and that _I_--"

Archer continued no further, though, and instead loosened his hold on Kimbley.

"We've been through this, though, and it's not going to make a bit of difference, no matter how right I am and how wrong you are," Archer finished, and for a moment, Kimbley was actually convinced that he was _actually_ going to let him go.

He was actually convinced.

Before he could fully grasp the situation, Kimbley felt himself shoved roughly backwards onto a bench, Archer's lips locked to his like a metal-trap around the leg of a defenseless lamb. Struggling, the Crimson Alchemist did little more to edge himself out of this predicament.

Archer pulled away, his ice-like eyes piercing as he slipped a hand up Kimbley's loose shirt.

"Crimson Alchemist, why is it that you insist on loving that thing? You waned to be free from him, so I just helped you in getting you what you wanted. The _thing_ you call 'Greed' is a monster of unspeakable ugliness. Why would you be with that when you could have me? Because you know… _I'm so much better_."

Kimbley squirmed as Archer's hot breath brushed his ear, its feel like an ice-hot breeze. It was true, yes, he had used Archer as a means to escape Greed, but… with choices come regrets. He left the servitude of the Homunculus only to become a slave to Archer.

He just couldn't win, no matter what he did, no matter how far he tried to run to escape his sin, he was to be eternally trapped one way or the other.

…Forever.

Archer's lips fell on Kimbley's neck, making a small red spot on his exposed skin. One hand continued to work under Kimbley's shirt while the other insisted on opening up the Crimson Alchemist's legs.

All Kimbley could do was close his eyes.

He wanted someone to save him, but he realized he wasn't really worth saving. He never had been, nor would he ever be.

"Get. Off. Him."

Archer jerked backwards, cursing silently, his eyes flying open from their half-lidded and ecstatic state.

But of course, Archer remained a block of ice when it came to surprises.

"Greed. How lovely of you to show up."

"Kimbley, we're leaving. Now," was all Greed said as Archer eased himself off the spread-eagled alchemist.

"Dammit, Greed, I can handle this on my own!" Kimbley butted in, sitting up and slinging his legs over the side of the bench.

Yet Greed didn't have his focus on Kimbley at all. Oh no, his slit amethysts were locked on Archer.

"Don't you _EVER_ touch him again, you pale-faced bastard," the once-Homunculus seethed, striding over and wrapping a hand around Archer's thin neck.

Something snapped in Kimbley, and, pacing over, he placed a nonchalant hand on Greed's arm. He still had to play it cool, either way.

"'Put him down, dear. I'm alive, am I not?"

Greed bit his lip, but allowed Archer's body to slump to the floor. The latter rubbed a hand cautiously over his reddened neck while the former turned to Kimbley and wrapped his arms protectively around his form.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Kimbley could hear pure concern in Greed's voice, which made him unreasonably angry. Prying himself from his arms, he looked up into his face and asked, "I thought you weren't going to treat me like your damn girlfriend? Dammit, I can take care of myself without your help."

Greed backed away, awkwardly, a genuine hurt spreading across his face.

But he managed to smile, and shrug it off.  
Sauntering over to the exit, Greed called over his shoulder, "I've signed you out. You're going home with me."

Kimbley paused, raising an eyebrow.  
Well, it wasn't as though he minded at all.  
He wanted to get away, everyone knew that.

As he passed by Archer, carrying his street-clothes and toting all his forgotten books from yesterday, as he trailed after the former-Homunculus, he murmured, "Better behave yourself, Colonel."

The pale boy merely smirked.

Kimbley knew he'd be having many more issues with that guy, but he didn't worry about it.

Catching up with Greed, Kimbley managed to grasp onto his arm.

"I didn't mean to get so mad at you," the smaller boy whispered up to the taller man as they passed by all the gym students on their way out of the sweltering expanse and into the freedom of open-air. Of course, they got a few evil glares, but why should he care? No reason, actually. He loved Greed, Greed loved him, so why not put up with the persecution? They'd had plenty of it, and would be getting dollops more.

Greed patted Kimbley's hand, though, and smiled reassuringly.

"Hey, I know you're a proud kinda guy. Don't worry about it."

Still… the former-Homunculus still seemed extremely troubled, at least, from Kimbley's own point of view. They let the subject drop, though. No need to prod at an already festering wound.

As they made their way out to Greed's car (or, as Kimbley had thought up fondly amidst the ennui of third block, "The Red Screaming Death-Trap"), he took notice of Greed's heavy silence. He awkwardly shoved himself into the car and thought to say something… _anything_… to lighten the ever-darkening mood inside the tight space, but knew that in the end it was a completely useless cause.

Oh, how he realized their bond was less than he wished.


	18. XVIII

_Disclaimer: Don't own FMA, or any of that, but that's been long since established. D:_

**AN: WHOOT! An update!**

**And that's about it, sadly. I usually have a lot more to ramble about, but there's nothing today. BUT 50 reviews on this!! Hooray! Thanks everyone; every single one is greatly appreciated!**

**So... enjoy! C:**

**---**

**XVIII: Kishin Da Omoi O Hakidashitai No Wa…**

It was hopelessly helter-skelter, Kimbley came to the conclusion.

He wanted Greed, Greed wanted him, so why did it feel like there was a wall constantly blocking one from the other…? Still…

Archer was a problem.

Kimbley could remember, as if in a far-off land, that Archer had become an obstacle after the ex-mad-bomber had fallen… in love.

In love?

Had he ever really fallen in love with Greed?

He chanced to glance over to the older boy, whose amethyst eyes were trained on the road, concentrating (which Kimbley had become quite—fond of that look). Honestly, Greed drove him _crazy_, in more ways than one. And he knew, undoubtedly, that he was just about as insane as he was.

…But…

Something was still in the way.

Until Kimbley committed his whole heart and soul (he had already handed over his body to that oaf, but he'd be damned if he got the rest of him that fast!), they would constantly be… uneasy.

…And the same went for Kimbley forgiving himself. Forever that might remain a thorn in the side of true love.

But his lamentations ceased as the car came to an abrupt halt and Greed pulled out yet another cigarette.

"We're eating here."

That was it.

Short, sweet, to the point.

Greed took a deep breath of the smoke, sighing wisps of grey and charcoal into the stagnant air of the car.

"Greed…" Kimbley whispered, trying to collect his thought into something actually meaningful, "Do you… Are you sure you don't hate me?"

The other boy seemed unaffected by the question, however, and seemed to soften a little.

"Dammit, Crimson, I told you before that I could never hate you. Get a little sore at you once in a blue moon, yeah, but hate you…? I'd let myself die before I let that happen."

Kimbley smiled slightly, and he felt a loving finger trace his jaw-line.

"Y'know I love that smile of yours, especially when it shines on me."

The once-alchemist merely rolled his eyes in feign-disgust, and remarked, "Let's just go in before that guy over there chooses to bash our heads in with a blunt object."

True, a man with bleach-blonde hair and a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips had stopped short and twisted his head around in alarm. Geez, hadn't he ever seen a man romance another man before…? Seriously, it was the… whatever decade this was.

Greed backed off slightly, giving an evil-eye to the random guy, and they hopped out of the car and onto the puddle-coated street.

"You think you should change out of those clothes, Crim—I mean… Zach? You might get kinda cold in those…" and here the former Homunculus lowered his glasses on his nose and raised an eyebrow as if enticed, "…gym shorts."

Yes, Kimbley had completely forgotten he still had his gym-clothes on, which consisted of a random and extremely raggedy shirt and too-short shorts, followed by too-big shoes on his feet.

"I'll change in there, if that's fine," Kimbley murmured, grabbing up his clothes, stuffing them into a bag stuffed in the dash, and noticing the random man was now pacing the sidewalk and watching them with some flavour of intrigue.

"Just as long as I get to watch," Greed retorted, showing off his teeth and tongue.

Kimbley said nothing more, though, as they entered the establishment.

If there were an earthly word to describe the sensation that came with entering the building, it would have been something along the lines of… _putrid._ _Foul. Reeking._ Hell, any one of those words would suffice in such a situation.

"You said that we're going to… eat here…?" the younger boy implied, in a state of near-gagging.

"My dearest Crimson," Greed began, with flourish, no less, "you have no idea the impressive stature of the fast-food industry on this modern world. True, it's less than ideal, but in short, it keeps my constant needy-greedy attitude adjusted by ensuring that I'll be able to get on to my next guilty binge in less time than I would desire to waste!"

"So… in other words… this food that we're about to eat is… garbage?" Kimbley questioned rather awkwardly as they made their way toward the counter at which, as Kimbley could only guess, was where they would order said-garbage.

"Exactly, honey! That's the beauty of this day and age, as you will inevitably come to see—everything is to be gotten right on the spot. Right here, right now."

"Sounds like you landed in paradise."

"Well, it was and it wasn't—" Greed turned to the drone at the counter, who had began to occupy herself with staring obsessively at him, "Ah yes, I'll have a double cheeseburger with a large fry, and follow it up with a drink that's… diety."

She nodded, followed by a blunt and positively bored, "And you."

_Rude bitch…!_

"I'll just have a… salad. Yeah, that'll be just about it."

The girl did some kind of lip-bite of disapproval, most likely at the fact that the menu sprawled out behind her was extremely extensive and had about a thousand and two different things from which to choose, and he had obviously chosen the most meager and healthful—not to mention least expensive—item on the whole damn thing, but pressed a few buttons on her panel and gave Greed the total price.

"You sure that'll be all?" she inquired Greed, batting her eyelashes at him.

_STUPID bitch…!_

Kimbley put his arm around Greed's neck, baring his gold eyes into her puny blue ones. Oh, the power he still held over humanity's fears was strong indeed, even if he no longer had such a menacing title as "Crimson Alchemist" with which to contend.

"Yes, that'll be all," he replied for Greed, "Oh, and if you were wondering, and even if you weren't, yes. He _is_ mine."

Taken aback, the girl immediately set to work running to the back to help prepare the food, even if it wasn't her job. Some guy noticed her retreat and had to fill in for her as Greed picked up a number-tag that was sitting daintily on the counter and took it over to a booth.

Kimbley sat roughly down with a sigh, Greed across from him. For a while, no words seemed appropriate for the time being, but Kimbley sensed a pair of light-violet eyes glancing over him.

"…What?"

"You told me I'm _yours_. Damn, I really must be rubbing off on you, am I not?" Greed laughed shortly, resting his chin on his hands and his elbows on the table in an almost dream-like fashion.

"Well, you made it quite clear that I'm yours, right? So… why couldn't you be mine, if this is a case in which sense is logical and you actually mean it when you tell me you love me?" Kimbley reasoned as their food trey alighted the table and their number-card was removed.

"Yeah, yeah, Kim. I know you want me."

Greed winked playfully, taking off the trey a strip of something and taking a bite of it. It looked… odd, and made Kimbley only slightly sick.

"So, anyway, why did you pick me up? You said something about me being signed out or something," Kimbley started, trying to distract Greed from the main conversation, a.k.a. their romantic life, which was something that was still to be extensively discussed.

"Auntie texted me and informed me that we got a call from child services about what's to be done with you."

"Child ser—oh."

Yes, Kimbley had completely forgotten he was a minor. Oh well. Stupid him. People tend to forget these kinds of details after a time, because they are indeed _minor_.

Eh, pun. Take it or leave it.

"Did she say anything else? Anything particular about the message?" Kimbley prodded Greed while also prodding the thing that Greed had on his trey. It moved, he swore.

"Nope, nothing else really, just that we had to get back as soon as we could, but that we could go ahead and eat first. At least, in text form. God, I love this day and age," Greed answered, sighing as though actually marveled.

Kimbley rolled his eyes, not even knowing what it meant to be "texed." He'd have to start keeping some kind of damn pocket-dictionary to keep up with all the idiotic phrases and lingo thrown about so carelessly like dirty rugs of some kind.

"Well, I'm off to get dressed, and hopefully not find any kinds of futuristic space-squids that make changing my clothes or wiping my ass faster," Kimbley joked, though he was somewhat afraid of something actually happening to that effect—or worse.

"Alrighty, Crimson. Be careful, though—they bite."

"Haha. Funny."

The once-alchemist rose, groping the seat for his clothes and then scooting toward the door with the little blue man-symbol over it. He braced to meet eye-to-eye with a space-squid, but was relieved when he saw nothing but a nodding janitor leaning on his broom, who, upon Kimbley's entrance, took this as his cue to leave.

Once he realized he was alone, Kimbley set out to do his business. Situating himself into one of the stalls, Kimbley ripped the clothes out of the bag and managed to pull his shirt over his head just as the bathroom-door creaked open.

"Shit," he cursed, realizing it was much too late to pull his shirt back on before the person entered. God, he had always hated public bathrooms. It wasn't like the other guy could see him at all, it was just so… uncomfortable. But Hell, he had put up with undressing in front of other inmates for all his years in prison. Well, things change, and so do people.

He yanked his hooded-sweater with the "A.K.-F.G." on, not even bothering to put on his pants. He'd go with just his shorts for the time being.

Kimbley danced out of the stall just as the other man came out.

He froze.

It was that guy from the parking lot.

The guy looked Kimbley over, a smirk on his face.

"So… you from around here…?"

Oh. No.

Was this guy…?

"Uh, yeah, sure," Kimbley answered, working his way around the guy and to the sink to clean off his hands. Suddenly… he felt rather… _dirty_.

"You know… you're kinda cute," the guy said, giving Kimbley a good look-over with a smirk planted firmly on his lips.

Kimbley dashed toward the door, all while saying as quickly as his lips would allow, "Thanks, y'know, I think I need to get back to, uhm, y'now—"

"Oh, I see…That guy's your date?"

Greed? His… date?!

"Uhm, yeah, sure, uh, that guy. Well, thanks a million for your compliment, I gotta go," Kimbley mumbled, pushing his way out the door and away from that guy.

Ugh.

He shivered.

Greed and Kimbley… on a date?

He'd never thought about it _that_ way…


	19. XIX

_Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, you know the damn drill. Don't own crap, yadda yadda._

**Disclaimer: Haha, the triumphant return of... ME! Well, technically, if you want to get down to the grit, there's nothing "triumphant" about me. Medical problems keep cropping up, and lack of inspiration in this pairing has left me dry and flopping. BUT, nevertheless, I shall continue with this until it's finished, because I've convinced myself that if I don't finish this, I should just jump off a bridge and into a tank of man-eating Greeds.**

**...Which actually sounds kinda nice.**

**Though I'm not a man. D:**

**ANYway, sex-changes aside, have a fabulous time reading! C:**

**And, though I don't think I ask for it a lot, feel free to review. 'Twould be fabulous if you would. :D**

**---**

**XIX: Genjitsu To Iu Kusari Ni Bokutachi Wa Tsunagarete**

Kimbley managed to land back in his seat, but not without looking like half an idiot. This time era certainly was strange—a man picking up men in bathroom stalls wasn't something that just happened every day to him.

On the table, where Kimbley had previously lifted himself to go to the bathroom, a small patch of green sat quietly, looking foreign amongst the rather colorful combinations of Greed's meal.

"Ah, did you say 'hello' to the squid for me, darling?" questioned the man across from him, his lips parting to show off jagged teeth.

Kimbley remained as nonplussed as ever, though, and with a tiny plastic fork began to poke at his dinner.

"Looks absolutely scrumptious," he said, monotone. "Tell me, what is it that they put in this, exactly? It doesn't look as… green as I'd hoped it would."

Greed eased his arms back over his seat, peering over his glasses and answering snidely, "Well, if you're going to be all finicky over it, I'll just have them take it back and you'll eventually become a stick if you don't comply to the natural pecking-order of things around here, though I honestly don't think you could get any thinner."

A poke at the salad.

"That didn't answer my question."

Another poke, followed by a sigh at the other end of the table.

"Honey, am I going to have to _feed_ it to you?"

Kimbley paused, looking about nervously, then wondered if it would be a normal ritual for people to do that, then mentally berated himself for thinking something as idiotic as that.

Things wouldn't have changed _that_ much, now, would they?

"No, I can feed myself, thanks," the once-alchemist answered flatly, finally conjuring up the courage to skew a piece of what-looked-like-lettuce on the end of his fork-prongs and shoving into his mouth.

Well, it was actually… okay.

But he wouldn't have been surprised if it had tasted like grease, as the rest of the food in this place was at least eighty percent of it.

Gingerly Greed picked up another golden-brown strip and bit into it, making an indentation of a fang within its crispy side.

"So, what happened to your pants? You just wanted to keep something on that would be easier for me to take off later, am I right?"

Kimbley scoffed. That thought was one that had never even crossed his mind for one glimmer of an instant, but it amused him.

"No, some weird guy came in there and started coming on to me, so I didn't exactly have all the time in the world to change," Kimbley replied, stuffing his face with another forkful. "Honestly, does that kinda thing happen a lot?"

Greed's face suddenly seemed to turn dark.

"Who the Hell was it?"

Kimbley managed a shrug, followed by, "I'unno. Some blonde guy, had a nicely-tailored suit, maybe a little taller than me. He was plenty nice about it, though."

Of course, he was keeping up this charade of nonchalant-ness in order to catch Greed's attention. He got some sort of sick pleasure knowing that this situation bothered him so.

Hey, once a sadist, always a sadist.

Greed, however wasn't the least bit amused over the events of which he had been informed. Scooting back his chair with a sickening "rrgh" sound, he rested his hands on the table for a few moments, as if gaining some sort of composure before uttering these words:

"I'm going to kill him."

With a sinister grin, the once-sin turned about on his heel and pocketed his hands, whistling as he strode off, perhaps in search of the one who had so wronged him.

Kimbley, of course, worried not as his golden eyes stared after the retreating form. What Greed did was his own business, barring that it had something to do with the alchemist himself. Besides, there was no way in Hell that he could actually be serious in his threat. Greed was much too easygoing and, as Kimbley had come to discover within the short span of their time together, quite kindhearted (and, well, not to mention paranoid of status. Really, he wouldn't go to such extremities to "defend his lover," would he?).

So the ex-Crimson Alchemist settled his eyes back to his meal and speared a bit more of the greenery on his fork. The taste was starting to numb his mouth a bit, but he wasn't about to complain. At least he wasn't retching into the toilet.

It was at this moment that a small sound, unheard by the drones working the beeping counter-shift and the overage crones bent over their equally "delicious-looking" grub, pierced Kimbley's ears. It was some sort of yell of dismay, like a tiny rabbit caged and crying for escape.

Deeply he sighed.

So Greed had been serious.

As moderately casually as he could be, Kimbley managed to pinpoint the screeching and walked (casually, remember?) to it. And there, standing in the bathroom, was the same man as before, only now he had both shoulders pinned threateningly to the wall behind him with amethyst eyes baring down on him menacingly.

"You don't so much as _think_ about him, you hear? I _swear_—"

Kimbley interjected at this point, saving the blond guy permanent scarring to his skin as Greed let him fall to the floor, simply with, "You know, you are _really_ starting to piss me off."

Greed peered over at him innocently as blondie managed to scramble to his feet.

"I was merely—"

"Enough. You," Kimbley motioned to the victim of Greed's enraged state, "Are you alright?"

The man paused, caught between running and thinking he might get beaten again. He noticed, however, the boy's rather apologetic stare, and thought it best to answer.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

Kimbley wasn't all that good at being sorry, but he was rather fond of practicing bureaucracy, even if it meant he was blowing up a poor child half the time. This time around, though, he would go about the methods that he had been taught in the military academy that he had attended what seemed ages ago. "Might I compensate for your trouble?"

Greed seemed to flinch at the third word, but remained impassive.

"Please, no, it's fine."

"You sure?"

Hell, he didn't want to get sued or anything. Lawsuits had existed in full force on the Other Side, and as he was certain that this day and age was all about "catering to one's every whim," he could only guess that they were _worse_ here.

"No, no," the man continued as he stood to scoot on out the door, "just…" and here he spoke directly to Kimbley in a sort of hushed whisper, "_keep him away from me_."

Kimbley had no time to acknowledge or nod before the man had scrambled out the door.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Kimbley had never been one to stew, but here he found it wasn't hard to.

Finally, "Crimson, I—"

"I thought we had gone over this. I can take care of my-damn-self, if you please."

He was sure Greed would get mad at him, or get depressed, or do something completely terribly negative at that point, but his reaction was one that pleasantly surprised Kimbley.

"I know, I know. I just can't control myself. You have to be understanding, love."

Kimbley shuddered inwardly at the sensation of a finger lingering over his lower-lip, as if experimenting with its softness.

"…We should go," Kimbley managed to spit out, and the ex-Homunculus shrugged with a disappointed little grimace as he placed his hands back into his pockets.

Needless to say, Kimbley never did manage to get his pants back on.


	20. XX

_Disclaimer: Don't own anything. ...Really, I think it's the honest truth much anymore. XD_

**AN: What's this?! An update so soon! XD Well, let's just say I've been inspired recently to get my unholy bum in gear and _finish_ this. This chapter's a bit shorter, sorry. D: But I hope it's enjoyed all the same! So... yeah. Enjoy! :3**

**---**

**XX: Jiishiki Kajou No Boku No Mado Ni Wa**

The car-ride was filled with silence, but it was by no means awkward. It was a pleasant silence, wrought with a sort of calm feeling. Kimbley even felt himself smiling when he noticed that Greed's eyes had taken a liking to wandering over to his side of the car when they were at a stop-light (which, in Kimbley's opinion, was a useless invention. Does anyone necessarily obey those things, anyway? One should be self-reliant in judging when to go and when to stop, really).

Before he knew it, they had pulled into Auntie Rita's garage, and the two disengaged from their places, slamming the doors shut and walking towards the door.

The door swiftly flew open to Rita's face, painted in worry and strife.

"Child Services… they should be here soon," she managed to spit out in an entirely morbid voice. Kimbley glanced to her side and noticed Janie, blue eyes flickering worry, clutching right to Rita's hand.

"Zachey… They won't really make us leave, will they…?"

Again, he could have been honest with her, told her that they would most likely end up in some orphanage somewhere without a will to back up a home for them, but he couldn't see those big blue eyes well up with tears. Deep inside, he had to admit, he had become attached to that cute little girl.

"Of course not, Janie. We'll figure something out, I promise."

Greed nudged at Kimbley's ribs, the former grinning and the latter grimacing. So, the oaf had noticed Kimbley was going soft.

"Well, come in, you two. It's not a smart idea to be standing outside when the agent gets here," Rita went on, stepping aside for Kimbley and Greed to enter the house.

Rita shut the door and announced she would be taking a shower (so as to look like a respectable lady for the agent), and Janie decidedly went off to play with her colouring books (c'mon, that's just the cutest thing _ever_).

"So, Crimson…" and for a moment, the older boy remained pensive. Kimbley had never seen Greed pause so reluctantly before a sentence before. He supposed there were so many words to be spoken that a beginning could never manage to meet an end.

"…I just want you to know that, whatever happens, that…" another brief silence, "well, I want you to stay with me. I want you to be mine."

Blunt, but it wasn't in as commanding a tone as Kimbley had expected. Maybe they were both getting soft.

"And what would I gain by not being yours, eh?"

Ultimately, that was truly the question. Kimbley knew nothing of this foreign place, and Greed remained the most familiar face, aside from Archer, but Archer would remain a second option if worst came to worst. The pale man had always struck a chord of fright within the once-alchemist, despite the fact that he hated so to admit it.

Plus… Kimbley knew he could find happiness no where else. Sure, he could get a kick out of stealing explosives and blowing up things, but his mind had changed within the short time he had resided on this Other Side.

It was all very ridiculously confusing.

Greed sunk into a chair, suddenly seeming tired. Kimbley followed suit, squeezing his body in right next to him. He allowed, even, for his head to rest on the other's chest. The words remained strained.

Despite the fact that they _were_, it felt oddly as if they _were not_. Kimbley had never been one to believe in the ownership of persons, for it just got messy and crazy with loopholes and knots, complicated with unneeded problems and random frustrations. But, in the back of his mind, he knew it would be worth it.

He felt the ring sliding around on his finger. His hands had begun to sweat at one point or another between sitting down and letting out a sigh that seemed to echo throughout the house.

They just… _belonged_ to each other, almost automatically, like nature had created this special niche especially for them.

What else was there to think over?

It was simple, suddenly, in one clarifying moment.

"…Whatever happens, I won't let them tear us apart."

Surprisingly, Kimbley had found those very words tumbling from his _own_ lips, and he could feel Greed's body shift even closer to his.

"I'm… glad."

"Glad" was a word that seemed so understated, but Greed was no poet (at least, the last time Kimbley checked. Still, it made Kimbley wonder how the Hell he had managed to scrape up a play. Maybe he _had_ picked up on a few phrases), and what words he spoke were plain and simple enough to allow his expressions to be made clear.

Kimbley smiled, passively, and went on, "I feel like we've gone through this all before… like repetition."

"Well, that's the way it is in all romances. It's _all_ very repetitive and droll, with the lovers constantly questioning over and over the quality of their adoration, their desperation, their complete and almost unbearable angst… and then a sex-scene. There's a formula, you know. Every novelist follows it," Greed replied, worming his arm over Kimbley's shoulder. It was warm, inviting, loving.

"And you would know," and the ex-bomber chuckled at this thought. Greed reading sappy romance novels. What a comedy.

"You know…" Greed picked up the conversation, his tone making blatant that his mind was on another track, "you would look sexy with snakebites."

At this statement, random and absurd in Kimbley's ear-passages, he cocked his head upward with a look of utter question striking his features.

Before Kimbley could make some sort of statement pertaining to the fact that he much preferred not to die by snake-poisoning (he had thought it over in the past, and poisons were not exactly his forte, though it would be much nicer than being smashed or suffocating, yet it seemed his fate would be… impaling. Yuck), there came a rapping upon the door.

Greed seemed to make no move (ugh, so lazy and needy… still, the ex-alchemist could have it no other way), so Kimbley took the initiative. Raising from his indenture within the chair (really, it was like a plushy-sinkhole of death and comfort), he made his way to the door and undid the locks that bound the heavy wooden door, not even bothering to peek out of the peep-hole to see who the visitor even was.

With a lavishing whoosh, the door flew open.

And Kimbley froze, his voice latching into a whisper-hiss as recognition flitted over his features.

"_You."_


	21. XXI

_Disclaimer: Don't own crap._

**AN: After that awful cliffy in the last chapter, I thought I'd update as soon as I could. C: And again, I thank all of you readers for favoriting, alerting, and reviewing! It does my heart good to see a full Hotmail inbox~ C:**

**SO... the revelation to that "_You._" is here! Enjoy!**

**---**

**XXI: Daiji Na Mono Wa Itsudatte Nakushite Kara Kizuku Yo**

The agent twisted, unnerved by the golden stare of the young boy in the doorway.

"This is…" a pause, a gulp, "…the Glass residence, right?"

"Yes, it would be, and what the _f_—ahem, _what_ are you doing here?" Kimbley asked. He had been nice to this dweeb before, and though he managed to censor himself, why be nice now?

For yes, upon the threshold of the doorway into the Glass mansion stood that same damn blond guy from the restaurant. Kimbley wondered which of these he was thinking: 1. _I totally hit on this guy earlier and now it's awkward_, 2. _His big beefy date is going to kick my ass in_, or 3. _This little prick lives in this mansion?!_

But none of these things poured from the agent's mouth. Instead, a quiet, "May I come in…?" came out instead.

Kimbley considered slamming the door in the guy's face. He had no business here.

But then around the corner came Auntie Rita, fresh from her shower and looking quite lovely, actually, fawning all over him and going on about him being the "nice agent they had been awaiting." If Kimbley didn't know irony, he did now. Though, he had to admit, his life was simply laden with irony. Betray a man in one life, date him in another. Go figure on that existence.

"Oh please, by all means, make yourself at home!" Auntie Rita practically groveled at the man's feet, causing Kimbley to taste something sour at the back of his throat.

It was around this time that Greed came sauntering in to see what the commotion was all about, and Kimbley swore that as soon as he caught sight of that blond guy, he could _hear_ his pupils slit.

"What the Hell are _you_ doing here?" Greed seethed, and if he had the ability to go Ultimate Shield, he _would_ have, and most likely, he would have ripped the guy's face off in less than a split-second.

Auntie Rita sighed as she guided the agent into the living room and sat him down in the chair that Greed and Kimbley had previously occupied. "Please, dear, this is the agent that is going to settle the dispute over what's going to happen to dear Zach here. I didn't think you'd be so rude as to use _that_ kind of language."

Greed didn't even bother to apologize; instead, he roughly plopped down on the couch across from the agent and just _stared_ at him. Kimbley took a seat beside him and sighed. He knew that Greed's stare held all the power of an alchemic explosion when he was pissed off; Kimbley would _know._

"Could I get you anything to drink? Eat?" Rita cooed as the man cradled his briefcase like an anemic baby.

"No, it's fine; I just want to get onto business."

So, the moment of truth had come at last. And Kimbley had no idea _what_ it would entail.

The man slid his briefcase across the coffee-table and opened it up with two short "clicks" of the locks, and after several different documents were strewn over the table and the case set onto the floor, he cleared his throat and began.

"My name is Jonathan Hawthorne, and I can only suppose that you're…" he looked at one of the documents with a raised eyebrow. "…Zachary?"

He looked straight at Kimbley as he said this, and the former-bomber allowed a smirk. "Why, yes, that would be me." _'And you hit on me and I may decide to mercilessly pummel you later… and, if I'm feeling generous, I'll put you in one grave instead of six.'_

The agent Jonathan cleared his throat again. Kimbley could only guess that he was feeling awkward that he had let his same-sex-loving tendencies get the better of him and allowed him to hit on not only a _minor_, but a minor that was to be his next _client_.

"Well, we went through your mother's personal belongings, after she… _passed on_… and I'm afraid she left no will to speak of. She has left nothing to you, or to your little sister, and it seems that, well, we really have _no clue_ what we're going to do with neither you nor her. And this, of course, is always extremely stressful for us. We don't want to shove you guys under a rug, but…"

"So, what you're saying is that you're going to put them… in an _orphanage?_" Greed barely managed to get out. Kimbley could feel every muscle in his body tighten up beside him.

And Kimbley very nearly did the same thing.

Now that he was here, he couldn't _afford_ to lose all that he had. He had too much, and it was all too important, and to _lose_… _everything…_

"Well, that's _one_ option," Jonathan answered honestly, then turned to look at Kimbley again. For some odd reason, he bit his lip as he asked, "Do you know of any aunts, uncles, grandparents, or _anyone_ else that you could stay with? If you do—"

"I could always stay here," Kimbley answered quickly, "even though Rita's not _really_ a relative, she's the closest thing I _have_. And Janie's so fond of her… and of… _Greg_…"

"Yes, dear, but now that Greg's eighteen, I'm going to move back to my own home. Would you be willing to come and live with me?" Rita interjected, folding and unfolding her hands nervously. Of course, Kimbley knew that she knew the answer to _that_ question.

Kimbley furrowed his brows and answered slowly, "Well, no offense, but I was hoping that I could stay _here_… with _Greg_…"

"You say that he's eighteen?" Jonathan asked, intrigue reaching into his voice. "If so, then I… _suppose_ that means he's an adult. And since that's the case, I could… pull a few strings, allowing you to stay here, with him."

"And Janie?" Kimbley cut in.

"Janie can stay here too, as long as Greg vows to be responsible. I don't really see why you shouldn't be able to stick around here. You're almost an adult, and you can make your own decisions."

Kimbley leaned back, relief flooding into him as he said shortly, "Sounds like a plan."

Jonathan nodded.

"Then it's settled. Zachary Kenderson and Janie Kenderson are now officially the adopted children of Gregory Glass."

Whoa.

Kimbley was now Greed's… _son?_

The thought was simple unnerving, and, of course, absolutely hilarious to him, and his first thought was _'I'm having sex with my dad?'_ However, the silly thought passed pretty quickly. Greed wasn't _really_ his father. That's just what the papers would say.

"Of course, there might be some disputes back at the office, but I've been working there for quite some time, and I can handle anything thrown at me, _especially_ lamps. I do have a wife with a great throwing-arm, after all," Jonathan added with a chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.

Kimbley had to choke back his every inch of sarcasm in his body to prevent himself from saying, '_Bullshit_.'

Jonathan gathered back up his briefcase and the documents (which they hadn't had to look at them too much after all; two of them had been Zachary's and Janie's papers, and the rest were outlines of procedures taken if a child was left without a godparent), stuffing them inside, and headed for the door.

"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat or drink?" Rita called after him, but Jonathan simply shook his head.

"Well, be seein' ya around, Hawthorne," Greed grinned, glad to be rid of the man. Kimbley could tell he had warmed up to him a _little_, due to all that he was going to do for them, but Greed was one for first impressions. And his first impressions of this guy had made him want to kick his ass up and down the damn street.

"Likewise, Mister Glass," Jonathan replied, shying away from the taller, much more _muscular_ man.

Kimbley leaned in and whispered to him, "Why are you going to go through so much trouble to keep us together? Officials like you usually go for what's _efficient_ and _practical_, not for what everyone _wants_."

Jonathan merely smiled and said, "Well, let's just say, I got a boyfriend back home who I would never want to be separated from. I can only say that this whole situation hit me rather close to home."

But before Kimbley could ask anymore, Jonathan addressed the house with a brief "goodbye" and headed on out the door.

The only thing that Kimbley really wondered was that if this guy had a _boyfriend_, why had he been hitting on _him?_


	22. XXII

_Disclaimer: Ownage equals not._

**AN: Haha, I have fun with my disclaimer. And have been for a while. XD So, I time-skipped a little bit, since we're not on the home-stretch. Hehe, baseball reference. ANYWAY. Here is the 22nd installment--hope it's enjoyable! C: **

**---**

**XXII: Usugitanai Uso O**

"You've _got_ to be kidding me."

A weekend had passed, uneventfully (which was surprising, as it seemed to Kimbley that Greed was _always_ planning something), and school had once more started up. Kimbley found it nearly unbearable to get up at such a god-awful time in the morning (when he should be _sleeping_), but eventually he smoothed out his demeanor and adjusted. His "friends" practically became alienated from him; Mary seemed awkward, and Dean and Lawrence were as… _itchy_ as ever about Kimbley's… _orientation_. And of course Archer took every opportunity he could to convert Kimbley to becoming his. Of course, the once-alchemist managed to use Greed as a meat-shield most times to avoid such situations. Who _wouldn't_ be afraid of over six feet of lust and muscle?

And Kimbley didn't forget that play.

Oh, no, how _could_ he forget?

In-between working on calculus problems, he would review the lines with utmost distaste. How could he actually _do this_ without cracking up on stage? Seriously, had he ever even _done_ a play before? That was _this_ bad?

Ah well, he was certain he could wing it.

…But then Wednesday came, and thrust before him was his costume for the final act.

Kimbley felt his brain literally _shatter_.

"I am _not_ wearing that."

Greed smiled, his teeth gleaming in the stage light as he held the hanger with one hand and placed his other to his hip.

"C'_mon_, Crimson, this was _made_ for you. Tailored and _everything, _so it's not like we're pulling this out of some storage bin—"

"I said, I'm _not_. _Going. To. Wear. That_."

To Kimbley, his point was perfectly clear, but Greed merely shook the thing, as if making _his_ point perfectly clear as well.

"Well, the rest of the clothes you wear are normal, and you'll only wear this for a little while, toward the end. Plus, Noah is a _transvestite_, Kim. _Transvestite_. And I'm sure you know what that means."

"Kimbley isn't _stupid_, Homunculus."

A groan escaped Kimbley as he realized just who it was who had butted into the argument. Things were only bound to get worse at this pace.

"Well, then, he would realize that he just has to buckle down and put on the damn _dress_. I mean, c'mon, it's _pretty_, isn't it?"

Kimbley sighed. He did agree, the thing _was_ pretty. It was a lovely shade of scarlet, and he imagined that it would probably bring out his eyes…

_No._ What the _Hell?!_

"If Kimbley doesn't want to play the part, then I suggest you give it to another who would be willing to take over in his place. He could always play the part of Anthony's best friend…" Archer insisted, his voice as icy and in-control as ever. He placed a hand to Kimbley's shoulder as if doing so would _really_ destroy Greed's thin wire of sanity completely.

It _almost_ did.

_Almost_.

Luckily, Kimbley quickly realized that if he didn't comply, there would probably be an all-out bar-brawl right here backstage. Well, minus the bar part.

"Fine, fine, I'll put the damn dress on," Kimbley cut in, "but I'm _not_ going to be wearing any _other_ kinds of those clothes during the production. I'm not about to degrade myself _that_ much."

Greed's face brightened considerably, and Archer reluctantly removed his hand from Kimbley. It was about at this point that Archer realized that he had lost, at least for the time being. Probably, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that the former alchemist was an unattainable prize, and that chasing after him anymore would be… _inefficient._

_Perhaps_.

But Archer was a diligent individual, nonetheless, and would probably allow himself to pop back up soon.

…Or he might find something better to do with his time.

Who knew?

"Go put it on, Kim. I'm sure you will look absolutely _stunning_," Greed prodded, leaning in closer as Archer was called away to set up the furniture for the first scene.

Kimbley felt his face tighten in contempt as he snatched the damnably lacy thing out of the former Homunculus' hands.

"Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in, ass."

He stalked away toward a makeshift changing room in the back, where everyone was busy trying on costumes and checking makeup for swift touchups for tomorrow's performance.

It was funny, Kimbley thought, that to so many of these people, _this_ was the most important, most epic moment of their lives. They weren't aware of The Gate, or that there was the Other Side, or _any_ of that. That their deaths would fuel the alchemy of a world that Kimbley had once known.

And now, Kimbley was stuck here, and he would fuel the alchemy that _he_ had once used.

Irony was truly biting his ass these past few weeks.

Thoughts aside, Kimbley made his way into the small curtained portion of the room and looked the dress over. Ugh, he couldn't _believe_ he was about to do this. This was probably the most horrid thing he could have ever been reduced to.

Well, actually, there could be _worse_ things, he thought while he slipped his shirt over his head. He could be stuck on This Side with someone he hated. He was lucky that he had Greed, or, if push came to shove, Archer to guide him through this Hellish and odd world.

He managed to stumble out of his pants as he began to consider all that he had accomplished in his past life. Was he proud of the things he had done? Had he really accomplished anything at all?

Well… Kimbley was Kimbley, of course, and he told himself that he had no regrets.

But, simultaneously—

"You okay in there, Kim—er, Zach?"

"Yeah, fine, _Greg_."

Using those names was so _weird_.

…Simultaneously, he despised himself for all the things he had done.

…Ugh, Greed was right.

There _was_ a formula to all this.

Kimbley slipped a leg into the neck-opening, and realized that it was much too small. Then attempting a different approach, he started to pull the thing over his head and realized his skull was too large to fit through. Seriously, he had never even _considered_ how these damn things worked.

"How the Hell do you put this on?" he said after a while, his voice laced with frustration. He sort of hoped that it had been tailored incorrectly and that it would have to be taken back. Then he could just wear normal clothes and _say_ he was a transvestite in the play. It would save a whole Hell of a lot of time and humiliation.

He could hear Greed's sigh from the other side.

"You really are hopeless, you know that? I swear, without me, you'd be nowhere."

Kimbley rolled his eyes.

"You just want me to say it so that you can feel your ego swelling."

"In my head _and_ my pants, baby."

"Just get the Hell in here and show me how to work this."

Greed chuckled, and pushed back the curtain. The look on his face was something of a mix of mild amusement and pity.

"There's a zipper on the back, you know."

Kimbley checked the part of the clothing-item that Greed had indicated and his mouth became a mere line.

"Shut up."

Greed allowed the curtain to fall back in place as Kimbley began tinkering with the costume again. He wanted to just get this over with.

Finally, after adjusting and readjusting the damn thing and twisting his own arm to tug the zipper into place, Kimbley emerged from behind the curtains, his face red from the exertion of manipulating that vile piece of clothing.

"So?"

Greed's eyebrows went up. Further, Kimbley imagined, than they had ever before gone.

"Well, I'll just say this, Kim. _No one_ will complain about this being an unconvincing act."


	23. XXIII

_Disclaimer: Don't own stuff. XD_

**AN: Ugh, sorry I've been out-of-sorts and I haven't replied to reviews, but I thank you all for each and every one and will reply as soon as I can! So now, it's time to head for the final stretch--just a few chapters to go after this one. I hope everyone's had fun! C:**

**Enjoy! :3**

**---**

**XXIII: Soredemo Sagashi-Tsuzuketeru Yami Wo Terasu Hikari Wo**

"Simon, have you ever felt like you needed to talk to someone about something, but you just… can't?"

First Act, and already Kimbley had been on the hairy edge of throwing up about fifteen times.

And they had only been on for about _thirty minutes_ for _character introduction._

Oh, if only he could go back in time and utterly _destroy_ whoever it was who had taught Greed how to write. Perhaps, then, it would save him this most disgraceful and distasteful of moments.

On-stage, he could feel the eyes of _hundreds_ staring him down. Perhaps even over a thousand, which made him all the more edgy. This little piece of the play was taking place in Kimbley's character's home, and he was seated on the sofa across from Greed, who was doing a nice job of monopolizing the easy chair, looking all… _manly-like._

Ugh, Kimbley just wished he would break out the _thumb-screws_ and end this freakin' torture-fest.

"C'mon, Noah, you know you can talk to me. About _anything_. We are best friends, after all," Greed said, as Simon, sitting up in the chair and looking over to Kimbley, all concerned and such.

Of course, Greed was hardly acting at all. He was just being himself, only with terrible dialogue.

Then again, perhaps Greed had _always_ spoken like this—shitty dialogue and all.

The thought made Kimbley nearly break character.

However, he stifled his chuckle and replied with his line:

"Listen, Simon. This isn't something that you'd take lightly. It's not something that we—as _guys_—would just discuss on a regular day."

Thank whatever gods existed that this wasn't a _musical_. Kimbley wasn't about to degrade himself any further by opening his mouth and beginning to sing.

"Noah…" Greed whispered, standing from his seat and walking over to him. Blood pumped to Kimbley's brain so fast he was beginning to hear his own heart-beat in his ears, he hardly heard when the music started up. "We've _always_ told each other everything… nothing could change the way I feel about you."

And then he opened his mouth…

And started _singing._

"_You and I, we've always been, like two peas in a pod… Together forever… Through the thick and through the thin…!"_

Kimbley didn't pay much attention to the rest. He was far too busy thinking, '_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,_' to be thinking of too much else.

No _wonder_ half of this dialogue _rhymed_.

Greed grappled Kimbley's hand and pulled him to his feet as the music sped up, and Kimbley felt his blood _freeze_. He knew the lines, but not the damn _tune_. And he was practically _tune-deaf_, as far as he could remember.

And indeed, Greed seemed to realize at the very same moment that Kimbley had not been informed of the last minute change.

The one word that Greed whispered to him was "_Improvise."_

Oh, Kimbley was perfectly capable of _that._

With a slightly lilting tone (with what seemed to match the rather… _gay_ quality of the music), Kimbley managed, "_But what might you think of me? You've known this boy since you were merely three! The thing that I tell you will change the way you see!"_

Greed grinned, "_Whatever, kid, don't make me beg."_

_"Trust me, man, I ain't pullin' your leg_."

Somewhere along the line, the two inserted a tango (though not the kind that has any _sexual connotations_, through any stretch of the imagination), and it seemed to fit nicely. Kimbley hadn't even been certain he _knew_ how to tango, and it certainly wasn't in the script.

But, hey, they were _improvising._

"_Trust me, Noah, I've got your back! Aren't we s'posed to be the 'Dream Team'?" _Greed countered, spinning Kimbley across the stage, who then put his hands on his hips and replied with a saucy, "_Tellin' you, Simon, you'll just _scream."

Greed crossed his arms, swishing his hips to the beat of the song and allowed his voice to get low, "_Want me to scream? Keep secrets from me, and our friendship be assuredly shattered."_

_"Battered?"_

_"Scattered."_

Kimbley threw back his head and gave a short laugh, "_As if it mattered! My business is mine, and if you can't accept—"_

_"I'm not inept! I know when I'm not welcome!"_ Greed retorted, then began to stomp across the stage to the fake door. "_Keep your silly secrets to yourself; I no longer mind!"_

_"Fine!" _Kimbley shouted, sitting back roughly onto the couch.

_"Fine,"_ and Greed grabbed the door, slamming it behind him.

The light faded to black, and Kimbley was left on the stage in darkness. Quickly, he jumped from his position and ran behind the curtain for the next scene. Everyone was rushing about, trying to pull together the props for the remaining scenes before a break after the Act.

Kimbley caught sight of Greed, and considered _strangling_ him. He was sitting smugly in a chair while some girl talked to him. She seemed pretty damn chatty, so Kimbley rudely nudged her out of the way and glowered at the former-Homunculus.

"What the _Hell?"_

"Oh, she just works the curtains, she doesn't—"

"_No_, I mean the _singing_ shit. What the _Hell?!_"

"Ah, that," Greed smiled, raising an eyebrow and crossing his legs. "I thought that you were _aware_--?"

"_No_, I was _not_," Kimbley seethed, trying to prevent himself from just wrapping his hands around Greed's neck and squeezing. Unfortunately, it would do him no good, as he couldn't blow him up in the process. The physical laws of this world _sucked_. "You expect me to _improvise_ this whole damn thing?!"

"Well, you did _fabulously_ in your first scene. And you only need to sing in six songs. Hey, one down, five to go, am I right?" Greed said, his smile only seeming to widen.

Kimbley's eyes slit, "I _swear_, one day, you will be _dead_, and I will not mourn you."

"Awe, I think you're just the bee's knees, too, Kimmie," Greed said, picking up both a pair sunglasses and a script off the dresser; the former he pushed up on his nose, the latter he looked over meticulously. "You're due in about five minutes, by the way. Hope you're ready to do some more of that _improv._"

Kimbley cringed, going over the lines in his head and realizing how many of them _rhymed_.

It was simply terrible to think that he was being subjected to such horrors.

Pulling back the curtain before the five minutes were up, he attempted to squint into the crowd. Though the light was rather blaring, he could see that Mary, Dean, Lawrence, and the other lunch-table kids had managed to obtain front-row seats. He also managed to spot Auntie Rita and little Janie, too, which was nice (but, and Kimbley was hitting himself for even _thinking_ this, was it appropriate for a little girl to be here with the subject-matter in his play at hand?).

Unfortunately, he couldn't see any expressions, and he had been (and will be, he was sure) too distracted on-stage to make them out.

"You're on," Greed's voice came in behind Kimbley, and he felt a hand grabbing his ass. "Make it _good_."

"Oh, I _will_," Kimbley replied, turning about and glaring at Greed in the darkness. Despite the fact that Greed had been (and probably _still_ was) a lustful, horrifyingly horrid, womanizing jerk-off, he kept feeling something flutter in his chest every time their eyes met.

…Heart-palpitations, he was sure.

Soon, Kimbley was on-stage, and bullshitting it _all._


	24. XXIV

_Disclaimer: Do not own._

**AN: Next to last chapter. O: This one was so _fun_. XD You'll see what I mean. So... enjoy!! C:**

**---**

**XXIV: Wasurarenu Sonzai Kan O Kishikaisei… RERAITO shite **

This was it.

The Final Act.

Kimbley had actually managed to fling his way through this without screwing up too awfully badly (he may have stumbled a few times over words, but no one had noticed or chastised). Archer had even managed to keep his hands to himself during their scene, in which Anthony (Archer) had spewed his contempt for Noah (Kimbley) through _song_.

God, musicals were _funny_ to Kimbley.

Happy? _Put it in song! _Sad? _Sing a song about it!_ Angry? _Why don't you write a song about it?_

But now came the _last_ part.

Backstage, Kimbley stared at the dress, feeling himself growing… _frightened_.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that Greed wanted _too much_ for him to put it on.

"You're only doing this because, secretly, you _want_ me to be a woman," Kimbley grumbled after pulling the curtain over to conceal himself and slipping into the dress. This time around, now that he knew what to do, it was a tad bit easier. "Just _admit it_."

Greed laughed beyond the curtain. Kimbley could just imagine him: leaning up against the frame of the makeshift dressing-room, his arms crossed and the air about him a thousand degrees cooler than everyone else around him.

…Kimbley couldn't help but _love it_.

"Kim, I want my men to be _men_, but by God, it's hilarious all the same."

Kimbley emerged from the dressing room, and as he peered into the mirror, he had to admit with _some_ measure of discomfort that he looked like a lady.

A… _pretty _lady.

Ugh.

"Shut it," he seethed, shrugging his shoulders as Greed's hand's ghosted over them.

"Can't do that, love, we gotta _sing_."

And then Kimbley walked out onto the stage.

Final Act, Final Scene.

The curtained stage was now decorated with candles that lined every inch of the floor, except for a section from stage-left and a portion in the center-stage. To Kimbley, it looked rather… dangerous, but it wasn't like anyone would listen to him, anyway. This was Noah's "farewell, cruel world" scene, and it had to be oh-so _tragic._

And the crowd was _more_ than silent.

Kimbley had considered checking for Mary and the gang, but he had to focus. He had to get through this—and do it _right_. Because he _knew_ that if he didn't, he would beat the shit out of himself later for it.

A job's gotta be done _right_, right?

Right.

Kimbley sat down on the floor and put the fake gun in his hand, and Greed waited just beyond the crowd's line of vision for the curtain to rise.

And then it did.

And Kimbley could hear the audience gasp.

'_Wow, you mean they're really into this garbage?'_ Kimbley thought, jokingly, because, of course, plays just weren't his thing. The downfall of humanity _had_ been.

Well, here goes nothing.

"…My final farewell," Kimbley began, trying to add a sob to his voice, and failing miserably. He just wasn't a… _sobby_-kinda guy. "…It's a shame it has to be such a bloody, horrid one."

Suddenly, Greed burst onto the stage, shouting, "Noah!" and he seemed to literally _slide_ to Kimbley's side. It was a graceful motion, for one so large.

"_Go away, Simon!_" Kimbley screamed, putting the gun to his head as he heard a violin start to play in the background.

Oh, how _dramatic_.

"You could never love me for who I really am! And now… just let me _die!_"

"But, Noah…" Greed sighed, wrapping his arms about Kimbley's smaller, slumped form. "I've _always_ loved you. Why should it be any different now?"

Kimbley sensed something hidden, something… _deeper_ in Greed's voice, but he couldn't dwell on it.

"Oh Simon, how are we to be?"

Greed reached over to wipe away an invisible tear from Kimbley's cheek.

…It was odd, though, because there really _were_ tears in his eyes.

And then the music started to gain cadence, and Greed softly said, though loudly enough for the whole place to hear, "Right or wrong, we'll be together. And it won't matter what anyone else says. I'll give it all away, if only to be with you."

Kimbley looked up into Greed's eyes.

And he _felt_ it.

The words sunk in, and it was then that he realized it had _all_ been worth it.

"I… I love—"

There came a sound from backstage, suddenly, and someone shouted something incoherent. However, it didn't prevent the curtains from falling onto the candles and bursting into flames.

As the crowd began to scream in terror and rush from their seats to the back as the fire licked up the curtains and began to consume the stage, Kimbley could only utter one word, "_Fuck_."

Greed laughed, rather easily despite the flames raging around them, and said, "I concur."

Greed yanked Kimbley off the ground, and the two rushed to the emergency exit, making sure to avoid the flames as much as possible. It was a little difficult to navigate in the damn dress, but Kimbley had been through worse—_way_ worse—and a little flare wasn't about to concern him.

Even if he was wearing—and he just _must_ reiterate—a _damn dress_.

Everyone had gathered outside, and not one person that Greed and Kimbley passed was un-shaken.

"You guys okay?!"

Kimbley turned at the sound of the familiar voice to see Mary and the others running over to them, looking concerned and frightened and terrified and, well, _all_ those other words.

"Yeah, we're cool," Greed replied with a grin.

"Dude, I thought you were _dead for sure_!" Dean sobbed, clinging to Kimbley's shoulder with a shaking hand. "Man… I know this is retarded to say now, but… I'm _sorry _about all the shit we've been putting you through. Right, Lawr?"

The big kid nodded, and all the other lunch-table kids nodded in unison.

Now it was Kimbley's turn to laugh, "Mary put you up to apologizing, right?"

All of them remained within what seemed like a perpetual pause, before they all relented and nodded once again.

But Kimbley just laughed, and they all took it as their cues to laugh along with him.

"Well, I hadn't been expecting _this_," came a voice from behind Kimbley, and _of course_ he knew who it was.

"Well, Frankie, life sorta has a way of throwing these curveballs," Kimbley replied after turning about, putting his hands to his hips. "And you just gotta handle them."

The only reason Kimbley had said this was to make it _clear_ that he could care less if Archer wanted him or not. And Archer seemed to receive the message.

…Better yet, he really didn't seem to _care_ too much.

He just smiled that slight smile of his and took the comment for what it was.

"Oh, Gregory! Oh, Zach, please tell me that you're okay!" Auntie Rita cried, hoisting Janie onto her curvaceous hip as she ran to them. Janie had her face buried in Rita's shoulder, and Kimbley felt the need to take her into his arms and tell her it was all going to be alright.

Pushing back his hair with a sigh, Greed replied, "Without a doubt, but the damn play's _ruined_."

Kimbley looked back to the school, which was now completely on fire.

Damn, what a freakin' _hungry_ fire.

Vehicles (which Kimbley could only surmise were being brought to extinguish the flames) with the same sirens as the ambulances that had taken away Zach's mother pulled into the area. The sound of those sirens pulled Kimbley back to that time, which seemed to be such a long time ago.

But it still made him feel… _uneasy_.

As the fires were being put out and everyone was standing around in silence, Kimbley cleared his throat to get their attentions.

He crossed his bared arms over his chest and tried to say, as though he were _not_ completely annoyed, "Could I _please_ get some regular clothes on?"


	25. XXV

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. But I may as well, eh? XD_

**AN: Well, this is it! The end! It was a good run, but I'm not the kinda person who makes series like Inuyasha or Naruto and KEEPS. GOING. ON. AND. ON. (Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with those series!) So, here it be--the end. And, of course, "thank yous" are in order at the end of the chapter for all the nice people who kept me afloat. C:**

**And so... onward!**

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**XXV: Futari Ga Mujaki Ni Waratteta Ano Koro Ni Modoreru Nara…**

Time has a way of making a man either the most softened of creatures, of the hardest of animals.

The first time around, Kimbley had been the latter.

The wind whipping across his face reminded him of all the times, in his first life, when the military trucks would drive them to their destinations—how the sand ripping up from the ground would fly into the open areas of the truck and sting his face.

Now that he had had time to think it all over, he recalled a lot of things.

And though he wasn't a man who regretted things, he knew that, deep down, he wasn't proud of all the things he had done.

He had stood over Zach's mother's coffin, and looked in at her pale face. And though she was lovely, with her red lips and beautifully shaded eyelids, he knew he shouldn't have felt anything.

Anything _at all_.

She could have just been another victim of his hatred, but that wasn't so.

Somehow, he had found himself feeling… _sad_, in a way that he hadn't known when he was the Crimson Alchemist.

For the first time, he knew he was _human_.

He was a _softened creature_ now.

He was free from his nihilism, free of his hatred.

In a way, he knew he would always miss the feel of slick blood covering his hands, of power and destruction.

…But now, he imagined he had better things to do.

"Slow _down_," Kimbley shouted over the rushing wind, tapping Greed on the shoulder.

The former-Homunculus stopped the motorcycle (which Kimbley knew that the man just _loved_) on the side of the road, and turned off the engine.

Removing his helmet and fixing his helmet-hair, Greed flicked his eyes over his shoulder and shortly said, "What?"

Kimbley rolled his eyes, removing his own helmet and handling his sweat-slick hair.

"Nothing."

Greed sighed, "Don't be such a pissy-face."

And Kimbley couldn't help but laugh. No matter _how_ long he spent time on this side of The Gate, he didn't think he would _ever_ get used to hearing Greed use this dimension's slang.

It was just so… _odd_.

"I just wanted you to slow down, was all," Kimbley replied to his companion, who had placed his helmet on one of the handles of the motorcycle and was leaning in with a small smile. "And no, we're _not_ doing it on the side of the road."

Greed pretended to be offended, "Oh, but don't you want to be _kinky_?"

Kimbley only smiled softly in reply.

There came a small pause, then, "Say it now."

"Huh?"

Kimbley looked up to Greed, who looked as though he was expecting something from him.

Of course, even in their time together, they had never forged a perfect psychic link, and Kimbley doubted they ever really would. Those things weren't possible in this world…

…Right?

"I've waited until this time, until everything was undone. The past is gone—though there were good times, it means nothing now. And now that Archer's leaving you alone, and you have a little sister to worry about, and an _auntie_ belly-aching over you, I feel like it's all been sufficiently rewritten."

"And?" Kimbley prodded, certain he knew exactly where this conversation was going now because Greed was starting to lean in.

"You didn't finish saying it in the Final Act. And I told you only to say it when you really _meant_ it."

Kimbley chuckled, and for once, it was really _genuine_.

There was nothing hidden behind it.

"Greed…"

He looked into his eyes.

"I love you."

Their lips touched.

Greed tasted like cigarettes.

And it was the best taste in the _world_—this one, or any other.

---

**It's lovin'-time. :3 This list includes anyone who watched, faved, reviewed, or even supported me in any way. Every single one of you is amazing. Thanks a bunch!**

**---**

**Anotsu Kagehisa**

**bajiji**

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**DarkSlayer84**

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**Kashear the Merciful Reaper**

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**I also have to give special thanks to Karasu, who, even though she hates GreKim, must be properly thanked for being my BFFL. XD**

**---**

**Well, that's it. I hope everyone had a good time! C: 'Til next time~**


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